The Doctor and Rose Tyler
by asarahworld
Summary: The Doctor and Rose. That's the OTP. Here is where I'll be posting all my drabbles and one-shots about the best ship in the universe.
1. Cubs of the Bad Wolf (Tentoo)

"You will not harm these children," Rose glared piercingly into the alien's eye. "For they are my children; these are the cubs of the Bad Wolf."

"Rose," the Doctor begged her. It had taken so long for her to fully accept him to be the Doctor, he couldn't lose her now. Not to the Bad Wolf. Not again.

"The Wolf is but legend. There is no one who can hold that power, let alone a human."The alien scoffed.

"Harm them and I swear you will never do that or anything else ever again," Rose said slowly, her gaze unfaltering as she let the Wolf energy begin to flow. The alien still held the children in its long, spindly legs.

Rose's eyes began to glow as the Bad Wolf began to assert itself. "Rose, stop." The Doctor ran a hand through his wild hair, desperately trying to come up with a plan. If only human brains weren't so slow! He thought angrily, feeling helpless. He was certain that had his Time Lord self been present, the entire situation would have already been over and dealt with. But his wife and children were in danger and he was their only hope. He, who had all the memories of a Time Lord, but no way to utilize any memory to help them. He felt his pockets, hoping for an answer and found his sonic. A prototype that he had been experimenting with - it had yet to be fine-tuned (or even tested). Many of the parts had been innovated from the limited alien tech he had... borrowed from Torchwood. This Captain Jack had listened to their story and welcomed the pair like the old friends they were, albeit in another universe.

At that moment, the doors burst open, revealing Jack and a couple other Torchwood employees. Gwen and Owen, if memory served. Human brains, they took some getting used to.

"What's the situation? I'm going to assume this is a hostile." Jack's eyes hardened as he saw the captive kids. He was godfather to the both of them; Rose and the Doctor had named him and Ianto the kids' guardians should anything happen to them and he had vowed to protect them with his life if need be. Bad Wolf, however, had never been considered as an important factor in the equation (Rose had told him everything, including what had happened to his parallel self on a certain Dalek spaceship and the...surprising effects.

Owen, meanwhile, had been talking to the alien. "We can do this the easy way or we can do this the hard way. You're coming with us either way, so take your pick; I really don't care." He grunted as the alien swung a needle sharp leg towards him, grazing his ankle. Another leg was raised, about to pierce his chest when the alien was suddenly immobilized, its body covered by swirling golden energy.

"Owen, move!" Jack shouted urgently. He raced forward and pushed the other man so that Owen was safely out of harm's way. Jack, however, was now trapped with the kids. He took them into his arms, trying to reassure them that they'd be all right. Jack looked around, searching for an escape route when he glanced upward and saw the alien's fleshy underbelly. He reached up, using a pointed stick to stab the creature. "Go!" Jack told the children. The creature was writhing, presumably in pain, and flailing all its limbs. The energy of the Bad Wolf had faded; Jack hoped that Rose was okay and hadn't drained herself of her human energy. He glanced back - she was holding her kids, sheltering them from the all too threatening alien - and breathed a sigh of relief.

He had been a second too soon. A razor sharp talon pierced his chest as the alien flailed about in its own pain before collapsing, dead. He faintly heard Rose scream his name as he fell and the world seem to move in slow motion. The ex-Time Agent felt each heartbeat in his chest grow weaker and further apart and knew that the end had finally come for the man known as Captain Jack Harkness. He was faintly aware of the Doctor and Owen kneeling over him, and of the somber expressions on their faces. "Tell Ianto..." he started to say, then broke off. Ianto knew. Ianto had always known. The alien was dead and the human world was safe. He had done his job, Jack thought. This time. The last time. And darkness fell.

Rose slowly made her way to the rest of her friends, clutching the hands of her children. "Jack?" And she remembered the Battle of Canary Wharf, instantly locking with the Doctor who she knew was remembering the incident as well. Rose left their kids with Owen and walked to Jack, meeting the Doctor over his still body. "Last time Jack died... I can save him." The Wolf was fading and Rose knew that unless she unleashed it soon, Jack was as good as dead. With that realization, there was no hesitation. Rose used the Bad Wolf once more and resuscitated Jack. He woke with a start, his breathing rapid and heartbeat irregular, but alive. And, presumably, immortal.

It was only when the Doctor kneeled beside her and wrapped his arms around her that Rose realized she was shaking. She drew in Jack and the kids and held her family close.


	2. A Blossoming Rose (Tentoo)

"Doctor? You alright?" Rose's face deflated, all traces of her previous excitement gone. She reached out to squeeze his arm comfortingly, but the Doctor had already pulled away, putting a mask of indifference.

"Course I'm alright! Now, how about you? How long have you…" He gestured inarticulately. He tried not to think but once opened, it was difficult to stem the flow of those particular memories. He tried smiling, though Rose still saw traces of pain in his eyes. She pulled him over to sit on the bed beside her.

"We don't have to keep it if it's going to make things difficult for you," Rose said gently, though her body betrayed her, her hand coming to rest automatically on her abdomen. "I… I just thought… you ought to know." The Doctor was silent, unreadable. Rose's hand snaked forward and she was holding his hand, folding their fingers together.

"Rose…" he started, but stopped. How could he tell her this?

Already, she was talking about safe ways that doctors could terminate or otherwise end a pregnancy. About how she really wasn't ready for a child, either. She was only twenty-five; it wasn't as if her biological clock was ending any time soon.

"Rose." He interrupted her; his voice was shaking but his resolve was firm and clearly heard. A chance to lead a full life, with her; a chance to start again, putting his past behind him once and for all. He was, however, scared. It was irrational, he knew, to be frightened of having a child. But he was acutely aware that he was the Doctor, that he would only lose everything he held dear time and time again. "I… I don't know if I can," he finally whispered, his voice raw with emotion.

"We'll get through it together," Rose searched her Doctor's eyes, trying to make eye contact.

Together. Alone. Gone. Forever. Or perhaps, in this universe, it had never existed. Perhaps the Time War had obliterated both sides, Daleks and Time Lord alike. And with no Doctor, they did not live on.

"I was a dad once," he said quietly. Rose suddenly remembered that he had said that before, back in the other universe in London, after they went to the 2012 Olympics. She bit her lip, and reached for his other hand.

"Still are," she murmured, "I don't think that kind of things just stops."

"But I… I can't… Rose." He buried his face in her neck, and Rose felt his tears slide down her skin. His expression reminded her of when they had first encountered a Dalek 'back' in 2012. Only this time, he wasn't defensive with his vulnerability.

"We'll take it slow, yeah?" She promised, absently rubbing circles around his back.

"Together." The Doctor reaffirmed, his voice already returning back to normal.

A/N: Hi, so let me know what you think. This just sort of came to me, remembering bits and pieces of the show. And writing this, I was reminded of just how much the Doctor likes Earth. Earth 2012, let's see. 'Dalek' took place in Utah 2012. The London Olympics, of course, in 'Fear Her'. Series 7 was linearly in 2012. 'Pond Life' and other instances when Amy and Rory were not in the TARDIS. The minisode 'Good as Gold' features a 2012 Olympic runner who is pursued by a Weeping Angel.


	3. Soulmates (Tentoo)

A/N: So here I have combined Rose Tyler and Tentoo getting reacquainted and the soulmate AU where you have the last words you ever hear your soulmate say tattooed on your skin.

By most standards, Rose Tyler was a normal girl. She lived with her mum, worked in a shop, went out with her boyfriend. The strangest thing most people knew about her was that she never wore a bikini, but there was nothing weird about wearing different clothing in and of itself.

Rose Tyler had not one, but three soul marks. Or at least, that's what Rose and her mum assumed they were, for Rose's marks were made of intricate circular patterns. The largest wrapped completely around her waist, across both her stomach and back, another (which, from what Rose could make of the pattern, was a question) was on the left side of her chest; the third covered her heart.

"Are you really the Doctor?"

He swallowed. "Rose. You've seen me change my face, why is it so difficult to believe that my face can be on more than one version of myself?"

"Answer my question." Rose didn't know what to think. She had gone to Norway ( _Norway!_ ) to cross back into her home dimension and stay with the Doctor. Now, she was back on the Tyler Estate with a man who wore the same face as the Doctor, who had assured her that he truly was just another incarnation of the Time Lord, albeit a half-human one.

"Yes." He said earnestly. "I am the Doctor. Blew up your job the first day we met, remember? Nestene Consciousness. Plastic Rickey. Travelled time and space until I regenerated."

Rose smiled a bit at the memories. One of a man with a different face who wore a leather jacket, one of a man with the same face trying to convince her of the same thing.

"See? Now, I'll tell you, I don't know who I am beyond the Doctor right now. Seems like metacrisis is a bit like regeneration. Same memories. Well, when I say a bit, I mean really a little. Tiny bit. Mostly different," he began to babble.

"On the beach…. At Bad Wolf Bay, you said that…" She didn't know how to start relaying what she was thinking.

"I said 'Rose Tyler, I have _always_ been in love with you'." The Doctor looked at her, love radiating in his chocolate eyes.

"Yeah." Rose was quiet. "You're the Doctor." He nodded, his eyes channeling his concern as he silently begged her to tell him was wrong. "You can read this then? The swirling stuff?" Rose discarded her leather jacket and pulled her shirt up so that her midriff was visible. The Doctor stared at her soul mark in shock.

"That's… that's circular Gallifreyan," he said quietly.

"What's it say?" Rose asked softly, her curiosity warring with her desire to leave the Doctor's past in the past.

"And Rose, before I go, I just want to tell you, you were fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. And you know what? So was I." He said from memory, glancing quickly at the tattoo to confirm what he had translated. Words from a different lifetime, spoken so long ago.

"That's…that's what you said in the TARDIS. Right after the Game Station. Before you regenerated." Rose remembered. She had thought her Doctor dead or kidnapped, replaced by a stranger. "So, he was…" She closed her eyes, remembering her first Doctor. "I've got three, though. All in the same…circular Gallifreyan."

"The three regenerations of the Doctor you know," the Doctor surmised quietly.

Rose hesitated briefly. "Doctor?" His eyes met hers instantly and that was all she needed to take the tee shirt off completely.

The Doctor could have kicked his Time Lord self for using those words. "Does it need saying?" He drew a deep breath. "Rose, I…" How could he explain why he had used those words? How it broke his other self's hearts to even think of them.

She had already buried her face in his chest, wrapping her arms around the half-human Doctor. Rose knew that he was her Doctor, in the same way that both incarnations of the Time Lord had been. "How's that sentence end, Doctor?" She asked quietly.

"I love you. I have been in love with you since before my regeneration. I felt myself begin to fall for you on Platform One when you completely okay with aliens who didn't look humanoid. When you listened to me talk about my fallen people and simply asked if I wanted to get chips. You didn't care that I got the flight a bit wrong when we landed in 1869. When you grabbed my hand in the dungeon or tried to save Gwyneth. Downing Street, when you showed me just how much you trusted me. I couldn't abandon you in 1987. Dancing during the Blitz. The Game Station. There was never any choice then. I couldn't leave you to the Daleks. It was…" He smiled, "Rose Tyler and the Doctor."

"Don't translate the third one. Don't read it. Please." Rose said quietly. "Promise me."

The Doctor bent his head down to touch hers. "I won't," he swore, before touching his lips to hers.

Some more author's notes:

So here we have Rose's soul marks. Would we be interested in the Doctor's marks? I was thinking if I write a second part focused on the Doctor, it would focus on Twelve. Might have flashback scenes. His soul marks would be "Yeah, see you", as those were the last words he canonically heard Rose say in 'The End of Time' (the Moment may have had Rose's face, but was not Rose Tyler and was only seen by the War Doctor).


	4. Reunion (One)

Rose groaned, rubbing her now throbbing elbow. Of course she had to materialize right beside a stupid box and hit herself on it. On her worst days, it was growing more difficult to remember why she was hopping across the dimensions. Reaching out to steady herself, Rose froze as her fingers made contact with the box's wooden exterior. There were large block letters on the top reading: Police Public Call Box.

Even if this _was_ the TARDIS (which she still had to check, there was a… Rose frowned. What regeneration was he on? How many did he get, anyway? How many versions of the Doctor were there?), but even if it was the ship, would he know her? In her head, Rose knew that the odds weren't favourable; but especially when it came to her and the Doctor, the odds meant nothing.

Hesitantly, Rose drew a chain from under her shirt and fingered the key apprehensively. Hand shaking ever so slightly, she tried the lock and exhaled with relief when the door swung open, revealing a large room with a central console. It _was_ the TARDIS, but not the room she was familiar with. The stark white interior briefly shocked her. So, in her absence, he had redecorated. No big deal, Rose told herself. At least her exterior was familiar. Stroking the console, Rose started murmuring to the ship, taking comfort in their telepathic connection. The TARDIS hummed in contentment – her Wolf was back and would soon reunite with her Thief.

Rose was suddenly hurried out of the TARDIS. A man quickly led her out of the time machine, and they leaned against its wooden exterior.

"I'm afraid that it's out of order," the man said ruefully.

The TARDIS… out of order? Was that even possible? Immediately, Rose realized that she'd spoken aloud, if only by the look of surprise on the man's face. "It's alright, I know about the TARDIS. Where's the Doctor, is he alright?" Rose questioned the man, somehow knowing that he wasn't here… well, that the man was not the Doctor.

An older man, with longer white hair, stepped from the ancient box and locked the door. "Steven? Where has he wandered off to now I wonder, hmmm?"

"Down here, Doctor!" The first man, Steven, Rose corrected herself, called back as her world turned black.

Steven propped the now unconscious young woman against the side of the TARDIS. "I think she's fainted," he added, his voice straining urgently.

"Yes, yes." The Doctor ambled over to where his companion was supporting the unconscious frame of the mysterious girl.

"She was asking about you." Steven noted quizzically, half to himself.

"Oh, I think not, my boy. Think about it. A police public call box. She was expecting a phone, to get medical attention." The Doctor dismissed Steven's ludicrous idea. "Besides, I have never seen her before in my life."

Steven laughed. "We travel in time! Don't you think it's at least possible that she's from your future?"

"Yes, yes, I suppose that that is a possibility." The Doctor dismissed the thought. Why would his future companion be using such a… well, not an archaic device, but close… The Doctor was unable to explain the wrongness that it exuded. Not a vortex manipulator, but close.

"Speaking of medical attention, we should bring some smelling salts or something from the infirmary." Steven cut off the Doctor's protests. "We're not leaving her lying on the ground, Doctor!" Steven set off into the depths of the box to find the infirmary, leaving the Doctor alone with the blonde, who was beginning to stir.

As Rose awakened, her mind was assaulted with comfort and questions from the ancient time ship. "TARDIS," she sighed happily. Amid the ship's excitement, images of the old man and echoes of the word 'Thief' filled their connection. He's the "Doctor…" Rose realized, her heart fluttering at the thought of being reunited with her love, failing to keep her thoughts silent.

"Yes? Yes, what is it, child?" The old man asked impatiently. He was growing more and more concerned, for the young woman seemed to know him.

Rose tried to stand once more, but was about to collapse when the Doctor caught her. "M Rose." She began. Since he didn't recognize her, Rose assumed that he was younger than her Doctors. "We- we travelled together. But I got separated from him- from you. But I'm- I'm coming back, so don't you forget it, okay?" Rose tried to explain her situation to the Doctor without revealing any of his future. The TARDIS stroked her Wolf's mind gently and assured her that Thief would eventually recall this conversation and understand her impossibly cryptic message.

"Steven was right," the Doctor exclaimed quietly. He wondered when this Rose travelled with him. For some reason, unbeknownst to even himself, he hoped that it was soon. Rose finally made it back onto her feet, with little help from the Doctor, and they were at eye level.

"I, I ought to go," Rose muttered. Though she could not stand leaving so soon after finding him, the Doctor didn't know her. He wouldn't be able to tell her what his future self had been about to.

"Rose," he savoured the way her name rolled off his tongue. "A mere companion would not be so dedicated to find their way back to me," the Doctor stated, trying to keep his tone clinical. Hope bled through his efforts.

"Yeah? I'm not… I _hope_ I'm not…" Rose could not find the words to express herself.

"For both our sakes, I hope so too, my dear." The Doctor smiled, thoughts drifting to the future.

"Doctor…" Rose trailed off, not finding words for what she wanted to say; she wasn't even able to find what she could tell this him. "Don't forget." She said. "I… I never said the words and neither will you, but…" Rose struggled to find a way to tell the Doctor. "When you know, tell me." She internally sighed, exasperated. There was no way she could tell him now and she would never again intentionally change the past. Rose looked at her dimension cannon and saw that it was once again fully charged. "I've got to get back. I won't stop trying. I promise, I'll find my way back." A tear slipped down her face and the Doctor unconsciously moved to wipe it away. Rose cupped his hand to her cheek for a moment, then pressed the button on the side of the cannon and disappeared, leaving the Doctor staring at the space which she had abruptly vacated.


	5. The Doctor and Rose Strike Back (Ten)

Imagine Person A taking Person B to see 'The Empire Strikes Back', but just before they go in, a group of boys say Person B shouldn't go in because they claim that Star Wars is for guys and not for girls. Person B takes offense at the comments and Person A decides to stand up to the boys. What happens next is up to you.

"So when are we?" Rose was quick to pick up the language of time travel, the Doctor thought, absently answering her question with a vague '1977'. Following up with the entirely logical "and…where are we?" ("Manhattan, Astor Plaza to be precise"), he shooed her off to the wardrobe, assuring her that the TARDIS would have a selection of time-appropriate outfits ready.

Rose slipped into the flowing pink satin top, quickly pairing it with flared denim jeans. A matching pair of heels completed her ensemble, along with white drop earrings. Pulling the hairbrush through her hair, Rose attempted to swiftly fluff it up, resorting to a crimping iron to style it. (If she was completely honest with herself, Rose enjoyed dressing up in different clothes from the TARDIS wardrobe for their adventures; with a closet like this one, who wouldn't?)

"So how are you going to get the movie tickets?" Rose asked the Doctor, remembering their first date when she'd paid for chips.

"Psychic paper," he muttered, replacing his sonic into his pocket. "Come on, then." The Doctor began to describe the after-effects of Star Wars, its complete integration into pop culture, both on Earth and beyond. "Episode V, by far the best in the series, though VII comes," he clicked his tongue to demonstrate.

"Watch it, woman! Get back home, cook your man a nice dinner for after the show. _Star Wars_ is so inappropriate for girls. Come on man, whatcha doing, taking a nice girl like Blondie here to watch space battles?" A group of teenagers sauntered past the pair, alternating between jeering at Rose and catcalling her. Rose rolled her eyes and kept walking, the Doctor's dead weight pulling her back. He stood in place, his dark eyes smoldering in anger the disappearing teens.

"Doctor, come on. It's not worth going after them," Rose forced a laugh, pulling on the Doctor's arm. They'd neared the theatre; the Doctor removed the psychic paper from his pocket and showed the cashier his 'advance tickets'. They'd just taken their seats when the same group of teenagers sauntered into the theatre, sitting directly in front of the duo.

"Doctor," Rose whispered. He looked at her, the rage still burning in his eyes, and pushed the boys from his mind, intent on enjoying a classic film during its world premiere with his companion. They watched the film, enjoying soon-to-be classic scenes and reflecting on how _Star Wars_ , as a whole, shaped society, ignoring the whispers that came from the row in front of them.

As the final credits rolled off the screen, the Doctor was already talking a million miles per hour about behind the scenes facts and spouting off trivia. They were leaving their seats when one of the boys made a snide, sexist comment concerning Leia's choice to tell Han she loved him and her reaction to Han's freezing.

The Doctor was about to blow into full oncoming storm mode, so Rose interfered. "If I were you," she began icily, "I wouldn't make any more of those stupid comments."

"Oh, and who's gonna stop me?" He snickered. "You think you're so high and mighty. Well, let me tell you, sister, Leia chose _such_ an opportune moment to tell Han her feelings. She should've told him earlier and they could've had a nice little fuck."

A moment later, the boy was clutching a bloody nose. "You _broke_ my nose," he wailed angrily.

"I did, yeah." Rose replied, unfazed.

"You're a _girl_ ," he whined.

"Good of you to notice," Rose muttered sarcastically.

"It's set in space. It's an action movie." The boy renewed his attack.

"It's a movie. Movies don't have genders." Rose turned to face him once more. "Now, unless you want a nice pair of black eyes, I suggest you reform your opinions." Rose spun around and briskly took the Doctor's hand, who was trying (and failing spectacularly) to hide a smile.

"You must be ten kinds of crazy, bringing her to a movie like this, mister." The boy called after them. He snickered to his friends.

"I could tell you the name of every single person who's called me crazy, but I don't think you want to be here for five years," the Doctor said in a low voice. "What's your name?"

"What's _yours_?" The insolent teen shot back.

"I'm the Doctor." He said simply.

" _Oooo_." The kid jeered. "Doctor what? Doctor Psychopath?"

"For a kid with a broken nose, you just don't seem to get the message," Rose sighed. "No use trying to tell him different, Doctor; he's just thick." The duo began their trek back to the TARDIS, trying to ignore the boy's continued taunts.

As they approached the ship, the boy had given no signs of backing off. Rose thought she heard the Doctor mutter something about 'dangle him above the Eye of Harmony', whatever that meant (it couldn't be good). "What if we took him somewhere? Somewhere he could see that what he's done is wrong."

"I could dump him in a black hole and he could think about what he's done for eternity," the Doctor thought. "No, that wouldn't work. He'd just pass the event horizon and it'd only look like eternity from our perspective."

"No, you daft alien. Take him to the future. Show him how diverse Earth becomes." Rose corrected him.

As it turned out, the Doctor had been correct in his diagnosis of sexist and xeno'phobic'. Showing the young boy the wonders of the universe had only reaffirmed that he was superior to them. The Doctor, disgusted, had barely checked to make sure that they had landed in the boy's home time period before kicking him out.


	6. Jammed Bow-Ties (Eleven) (AU)

Via .com

Imagine Person A is obsessed with bow ties. When they have their first child, Person A dresses up their baby boy with bow ties, just like Person A. Person B just grins at how happy Person A is whenever they dress up their kid.

This ended up as a variation on this theme.

Some sort of AU in which a version of Eleven and Rose have a son. And no, the kid isn't the same person as the companion. He's probably just named after an old friend or something.

The Doctor stares at his son in shock. Not only is the child wearing a bow tie, but also he is wearing the Doctor's _favourite_ bow tie. The dark blue one covered in bananas. And there is jam on it. And toast crumbs. Blackberry jam on his beloved bow tie.

"Daddy!" Jamie cries happily, running over to his father. The Doctor opens his arms automatically, and then glances down at his son, who has now ruined his shirt with the jam-stained accessory.

"Jamie," the Doctor's words die on his lips as he sees how happy his son is. "How was breakfast?"

"I had toast." Jamie said proudly. "All by self." Which meant that the kitchen was a disaster zone. And if there was jam on his bow tie, there was probably jam elsewhere.

"Let's get you cleaned up, _trouble_ ," the Doctor says, untying Jamie's bow tie and throwing it in the wash. He could only hope that the jam stains weren't permanent.

"Bow," Jamie's lips puckered as his father took the tie away.

"Messy, Jamie. What would your mother say?" The words begin to die away as he sees Rose standing in the doorway, still in her bathrobe, smiling as she clutched her tea mug.

"She'd say, Jamie, you shouldn't touch your father's bow-ties. He's irrationally attached," Rose says, taking a drink to mask her grin.

"Mummy!" Jamie runs to hug his mother, who sets her tea down to pick her son up.

"Good morning, trouble," Rose ruffles her son's hair affectionately. "Sounds like you found Daddy's favourite tie."

"I wore it. Just like Daddy." Jamie declares proudly.

"Just like Daddy," Rose affirms, taking her son's hand and leading him back to the kitchen, presumably to finish his breakfast. The Doctor looks after them happily, then back at his bow-tie. There were many things in this world that could be replaced, favourite bow-ties included, but the Doctor would never give up his life with Rose and little Jamie for anything.


	7. Doctor Who? (Ten)

The same man. I'm still him. Variations on a theme of what he had told Rose only hours before. And yet, hadn't he also said that he was an entirely new man? He'd known that something had gone wrong during his regeneration. It had been so much more violent than previous changes - regeneration energy had literally burst from within his body. He supposed that that had come from holding off the change. Holding off regenerating, all the while growing closer to dying permanently, to save one pink and yellow twenty-first century human. He felt responsible for her, yes, but he'd grown to feel responsible for all the companions he'd had over the years. He felt affectionate towards her, but was there a companion who had travelled with him whom he had not liked? He mentally reviewed his companions, the TARDIS bringing up their holograms. To his dismay, the Doctor realized that not only could he not remember some of the former TARDIS occupants' names, but he utterly failed to recognize their face. He supposed that with roughly nine hundred Earth years of time and space travel, he would forget some of the people he had known. But he hadn't realized that that would include his companions. His best friends, his only friends.

Was he still the same doctor who had stolen a TARDIS and run away with Susan? The answer, of course, was no, how could he be the same, how could he be unaffected, unchanged by all he had seen. But, on the other side of the coin, how could could he not be the same adventurous renegade Time Lord? The same wanderlust still ran through his veins, wanderlust that hadn't been tempered over time, wanderlust that led him through the universe. There were very few certainties that the Doctor believed in. The first was that no matter what happened, his trusty time-and-space-ship would be there at the end to take him back into the vortex. The second was... his thoughts meandered astray.

Rose Tyler. His companion. Wherever they went, people assumed that they were a couple. He'd been older looking, gruff and tough in a worn leather jacket. A leather jacket that now lay abandoned in the depths of the TARDIS. Abandoned in the depths of the TARDIS. Rose must be somewhere within the ship, though he hadn't seen her since taking off from the Powell Estate. The Doctor realized that he was quite introspective and remembered the gob he'd proclaimed himself to have earlier. If only Rose... but that thought halted abruptly as the Doctor began to ponder his companion. Regardless of whom he was, he was still the Doctor, and the Doctor needed to look out for his companion.


	8. Eternity (Twelve)

It wasn't love at first sight. At first, she'd simply been another stupid ape to be ignored by the Oncoming Storm. But… He came back for her. Asked her to travel with him, not once, but twice. He reckoned he might've been going a bit soft in his old age, for there was no denying that the War had aged him, for he never asked twice. She amazed him. Intelligent and spunky, he couldn't deny that he cared for her. So many centuries later, anything could still trigger a quickly, quietly repressed memory. The yellow rose falls to the floor.


	9. Shadows

She's always there, a shadow lingering in the back of his mind. A shadow, but how can _she_ be a shadow when she was always a burst of light in his dark existence? Her memory follows him; he is constantly reminded of her, even when he tries to forget. Her memory shadows him, always lingering, always remembered, always thought of, even when the pain is almost intolerable. A shadow that exists because the light, that once was, was extinguished, and he's left with the darkness that is his soul. _You made me better_. She was his light in the shadows.


	10. Fuck, Rose (Twelve)

" _Fuck_ , Rose," the Doctor's were glued on his companion as she walked into the console room. Her red dress was short and tight, her hair falling in loose curls.

Rose laughed. "Later," she promised, taking his hand. "You promised me a dance," her tongue was out again, daring him to capture it.

"As I recall, _dancing_ was how we danced around fucking, Rose Tyler," the Doctor said roughly, raking his eyes over Rose's form.

Rose dropped his hand and held out the crook of her arm. "Shall we, Sir Doctor?"

The Doctor opened the doors of the TARDIS and took Rose's proffered arm. "Of course, Dame Rose." He smiled softly, and Rose kissed his cheek.

"What's the name of this planet?" She requested, loving how the Doctor's face always lit up when answering a question. Rose listened to the Doctor's narrative, letting his brogue wash over her as she took in the planet's landscape.

The Doctor had been invited to the party eight regenerations ago, but had kept putting it off. The universe always seemed to need saving, he'd think every time he remembered the invitation. He felt Rose clutching his arm with excitement, her free hand coming up to hold his hand. As per usual, the Doctor hadn't bothered to change out of his normal attire, though his red-lined suit matched Rose's dress. He looked at her, and was struck once more by how beautiful she was.

"You look exquisite," he murmured, bringing Rose's hand up to his lips.

"You're pretty dapper yourself," Rose caressed the Doctor's face, her hand coming to rest on his shoulder.

"Well, we'd better get on out there," the Doctor said suddenly. "Or the whole thing will be over." Something told him that Rose wouldn't be too disappointed if they never made it out of the TARDIS.

The short walk to the palazzo was pleasantly free of Daleks, Ice Warriors, and Cybermen. The weather was cool, and Rose pulled the Doctor's arm around her shoulders. The Doctor's lips twitched, but he did not move away. The Doctor kissed Rose's hand once more. Soft strains of music were coming from inside the door and the Doctor deftly manoeuvered in front of his partner.

"I'd rather not _ravish_ you in front of an audience," he growled in her ear.

"So impatient. _Dance_ first, my Doctor," Rose turned her head and kissed his nose, twirling under his arm and pulling him into the ballroom.

Rose's dress:


	11. (Three)

Doctorroseprompts An injured Dimension Hopping Rose is found by a different Doctor

"Oh!" The cry was wrenched from Rose's throat as she fell into the dimension. She was in some sort of military base, she presumed. This was not going to be pleasant, she thought, if she was discovered.

"Brigadier," a man had reached for a red telephone. "There's someone in the lab!" He spoke rapidly into the device, hanging up quickly. "Stay exactly where you are, don't move," he warned Rose, unholstering a pistol.

"Guessin' m not supposed to be in here," Rose laughed humourlessly. "You'd never believe me if I told how regular of an occurrence this is."

A tall man, still in military dress, entered the room. "What is the problem, Colonel?" He spoke quickly, a man who was clearly used to giving orders. Definitely a military base, Rose thought distastefully.

"An intruder, sir."

"Who are you? How did you enter this base?" The Brigadier turned his attention to Rose.

"Accident." Rose replied simply.

"It's impossible to break into a secure facility by accident," the Brigadier dismissed her answer. "What are you doing here?"

"Followin' a tracking device," Rose crossed her arms, clearly trying not to wince.

"You're injured," the Brigadier observed.

"M fine," Rose tried to keep her face a mask. The Brigadier picked up the telephone.

"Liz? Is the Doctor there? Good. Yes. A patient. Yes, a patient. Well he must know something. Straight away." He hung up, noting the girl's interest had piqued when he'd mentioned the Doctor.

"The Doctor?" She asked, trying desperately to feign disinterest.

"A Doctor, yes. You may be trespassing on military property, but you are injured. Let it not be said that U.N.I.T. is inhumane."

"Right," Rose muttered. Her eyes were fixed on the clock above the door. "Twenty-five minutes more…"

The Brigadier questioned her. His previous inquiries remained unanswered, but she was human. Twenty-two years of age. Not a natural blonde. It was curious how honestly she answered his questions, but wholly refused to acknowledge others.

"You rang, Brigadier?" Another man entered the room. Older than the Brigadier, subordinate in rank. Rose had to stifle a giggle – he was wearing a sort of red lined cape with a ruffled shirt.

"Bit impractical, that," the words slipped out.

The man looked her over. "What do you expect me to do with her, Brigadier? Why didn't you send for Liz if there's an injured girl?"

"I did, but Miss Shaw is otherwise engaged in a critical experiment at the moment, Doctor." The Brigadier explained. "She says that she is following a tracking device."

"And what's the device honed to?" The doctor asked.

"A ship," Rose interrupted. "The ship is here, which means that the Doctor is here. Where am I, and what's the date?"

"The date?" The Brigadier asked incredulously.

"The date," she repeated, insistent.

"The third of March," the Brigadier responded. The girl looked at him. "1970," he added.

"Too soon," Rose muttered. Even if the Doctor was around, he wouldn't know her. Or at least, she assumed. He tended to stay rather linear with Earth's timeline.

"I beg your pardon," the doctor said, "but what do _you_ know of timelines?"

"A bit," Rose replied evasively.

There was something strange about this girl. Timelines were converging on her, a gold one in particular, and his own.

"Hmm." The doctor fixed her with a piercing stare.

"You're the Doctor, aren't you?" It made sense. The Brigadier had not referred to him by another name. He was so different from her Doctor. Where her Doctors had dark hair, his was white. His blue eyes were not quite so icy as her first Doctor's, and his clothing accessories were…flamboyant. But, she surmised, what was the difference, really, between a red-lined cape and a blue-lined heavy overcoat?

"So you know me?" The Doctor truly was a bit of a drama queen, no matter which body you were talking to, Rose thought, amused.

"Doctor, her injuries," the Brigadier spoke.

"Ah, yes. Thank you, Brigadier." The Doctor was still facing Rose. "What seems to be the problem?" He asked, in his best professional voice.

"Mighta turned my ankle," Rose admitted. The Doctor gently prodded her ankle. "The other one," she started to grin, wincing when he'd transferred his touch to her injured ankle.

"Yes, it appears to have been twisted." The Doctor diagnosed. "Wrap it in tape and it'll be good as new," he proclaimed.

"You're the Doctor around here," Rose snickered. "Isn't that your job?"

"I am a Doctor of many things, Miss…"

Rose shook her head. "Nu uh. You'll find out soon enough. Well, perhaps not soon by your standards."

"My standards?"

"You're the Doctor," Rose repeated.

"You seem to know the Doctor quite well," the Doctor commented. "How are you so certain that I am he?"

"Only the Doctor would be a big enough _drama queen_ to wear a cape," Rose laughed. "It's so you. And when I first came in here, the Brigadier called you 'Doctor'. Is he a Time Lord, as well? You seem to have no problem calling everyone else here by name." By this, of course, she meant Liz.

By this time, Liz Shaw had made an appearance. The Brigadier looked at Liz, his face twitching as he pushed back his laughter. "No," he answered the girl. "Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart," he said, snapping a salute. "Head of the United Kingdom's UNIT base."

"Commander Tyler," Rose saluted him back. "Torchwood."

 _Torchwood_. The Doctor had never heard of this operation before, he supposed that it must be something that did not yet exist. He made a mental note to look out for the organization, where- and whenever it popped up.

Rose knew that the dimension cannon was almost finishing re-charging. Fifteen minutes.

The Doctor was speaking to Liz Shaw in hushed voices. Rose assumed that he was bringing her up to speed on why she had been called.

"Doctor," Rose said, tentatively. He turned from Shaw, looking at her. His face was impassable, his arms crossed under his cape. Rose sighed as she looked at him, her eyes smiling but the rest of her face sad. "So close, and so far," she muttered.

"Yes, what is it?"

Rose tried not to laugh. Even when he was different, he was still the same. "Rude and not ginger," she finished her thought aloud.

"That's an odd way of describing a person," Liz Shaw commented. "But I will say that it does fit the Doctor quite well."

"Liz!" The Doctor exclaimed. Liz shook her head at him and moved towards Rose, quickly bandaging her ankle.

"If I'm not needed, I'm going back to the laboratory," she directed her statement to the Brigadier, who nodded.

"Dismissed." Shaw exited the room, leaving Rose alone with the Doctor and the Brigadier.

Ten minutes.

"You know the Doctor," the Brigadier said. It was not a question.

"Yes."

"How?"

"He saved my life," Rose replied simply. "I'm sorry, Brigadier Stewart, but I cannot risk giving away information that might change the future." She rotated her ankle experimentally, wincing slightly. It felt better now, but she knew that she would need to be careful when going back to Pete's World.

"You know him, but you did not recognize him when you first arrived." The Brigadier continued.

"Yes."

"He clearly does not know you, so you are from his personal future."

"Yes."

"How did you get here?"

"I can't tell you that. I use a tracking device, locked on to the TARDIS."

The girl was being honest with him, the Brigadier noted. There was no way possible she could know about the TARDIS if she did not know the Doctor.

"You can not track the TARDIS," the Doctor said, affronted.

"You can if you have a key," Rose lifted a chain from under her shirt, a TARDIS key glinting the light.

"Who are you?" The Doctor asked.

"I can't tell you, Doctor," her eyes were pained, as if her heart might break with the pain of not being able to share with him.

Two minutes.

"I keep missing you, arriving far too early. I hope I haven't made a mess of the timelines." She laughed humourlessly.

Commander Tyler looked, dare he think it, lovingly into the Doctor's eyes.

"M coming back for you," she sighed, smiling sadly. "Don't forget that. M coming home." Commander Tyler pressed the yellow button, disappearing.

"Well, Doctor?" The Brigadier asked.

"Well, what, Brigadier?"

"You spoke with her the most, or rather she spoke to you. You truly did not know her?"

"No. She's from the future, that much was clear."


	12. Burning Gold (Nine)

Golden. Pink and yellow turned to burning gold.

" _What've you done?"_ The words ineloquently tumble from his mouth.

" _I looked into the Tardis, and the Tardis looked into me."_ Rose was literally afire from the inside.

" _You looked into the Time Vortex. Rose, no one's meant to see that."_ Her timeline was burning.

" _Everything must come to dust. All things. Everything dies. The Time War ends_." The Daleks disintegrating into less than nothing, Rose's mind burning. She was becoming more Time Lord than human. And it was killing her.

" _I think you need a Doctor."_ There was no choice. Rose was dying; his fault. He'd sent her away, not considering her cleverness or deep empathy, and she'd saved him once more.

He hesitated before kissing her. Physical contact could be accomplished with his fingers, but only now could he overcome his cowardice. "I'm sorry," he murmured.

 _*All recognizable dialogue from The Parting of the Ways_.


	13. Intoxication (Nine)

"I thought Time Lords couldn't get drunk," Rose looked from Jack to the Doctor, who currently slouching against the coral strut.

"Normally, no." The Doctor slurred. "But _somebody_ had th' idea to spike _ginger beer_."

Rose looked back at Jack, who preened, and back again. "You got drunk on ginger beer?"

The Doctor growled angrily in Jack's general direction. "Yep," he pressed a hand to his forehead.

Rose cursed internally.

"Pay up, Rosie!" Jack finally called, grinning like a loon.

"I don't have it _on me, Jack_ ," she muttered, trying to keep from laughing at the sight in front of her. The Doctor was trying to put the TARDIS in flight, but had only succeeded in turning off the monitor. Rose half-suspected that the TARDIS had locked him out of the controls.

"Rose!" Jack wheedled loudly.

" _He'll hear you, Jack,_ " Rose hissed back. It wouldn't do to have the Doctor realize that she had put Jack up to this… activity. _"You weren't supposed to drink with him!"_

Jack shrugged, casually looping an arm around her shoulders. "What can I say? He's a great partner… drinking and others."

"Jack!"

"ROSE!" The Doctor sidled in between the two humans. "You should've come with us."

Rose could barely contain her amusement at his expression. "No, ta. Two loons on a ship is more than enough." The TARDIS flickered her lights in agreement. Rose looked from the Doctor to Jack. "Right, well while the two of you were god-knows-where drinking, I was having a lovely evening in. Girls night, me and the TARDIS."

"TARDIS exists 'cross time. Night in is rel-a-tive," the Doctor grabbed Rose's hand. "Do you remember Jack's first night here?"

"Night's relative, Doctor." Rose reminded him.

"I can dance," he took her in his arms and began to gently circle around the room. Rose felt herself relax, despite the circumstances. She smiled unconsciously as the Doctor twirled her across the room, his motor functions apparently unaffected by the presumably copious amounts of alcohol he'd consumed.

"Right," she said firmly. "To the media room, the both of you." Rose took her friends by the hand, leading them through the corridors to somewhere she could keep an eye on them as they recovered from their excursion. She didn't doubt that there would be an antidote somewhere in the infirmary to ease their recovery, but the Doctor and Jack (idiots, the pair of them) no doubt would be fun to watch regain their sobriety.


	14. Soulmate (Eleven)

"I know about _her_ ," River says suddenly, quietly. The TARDIS is empty, her parents have long since gone to bed, and the Doctor is tinkering under the console. Sparks fly as he slides back into the open.

"Sorry?" He asks, and he sounds so confused and looks so ridiculous with the over-large goggles on.

"The TARDIS told me," River continues. "About Rose Tyler."

The Doctor lies on the floor, mouth gaping. He disappears back under the TARDIS controls.

"Doctor," River's voice is strained, he can hear her trying to hold back all emotion and of course she fails miserably. He ignores her, his 'tinkering' becoming more aggressive and frantic when he is abruptly pulled out by his ankles.

"Rude!" He says in a huff, scanning the console with his screwdriver.

"Put that screwdriver away, we all know that you are causing more damage than you're fixing," River says, irritated. The TARDIS lights the time rotor in agreement and the Doctor reluctantly replaces it in his breast pocket, still lying on the grating.

"I can take you back to prison like –" he snaps his fingers.

"But you won't," River can't help but flirt back with him. He makes it too easy sometimes. It's quiet then, quiet for a long time; though whether it's an hour or two minutes is unknown and irrelevant.

"I know that you loved her," River says eventually. The Doctor is silent. Her voice is surprisingly steady, when it feels like her world is crashing around her. River looks at him imploringly, as if waiting for him to deny it. He doesn't.

"You loved _her_?" Her voice is quieter, more vulnerable than he's ever heard her.

He wets his lips, trying to force himself to answer her, trying to ignore her use of the past tense. Pathetically, even now, decades after he's last seen her, he can't say the words aloud. Every moment in which he ever tried come back, and he swallows, bringing a hand to his forehead. How can such a small word sum up his feelings for her? She was his rock, his equal, his partner, his wife on almost every planet they'd visited together, his _soulmate_.

"Doctor," she says, and he looks up again, and meets her eyes. Somehow, without saying a word, he must have communicated _something_ to her because her expression has changed – her eyes have hardened, her face carefully devoid of emotion.

"What do you want me to say?" The Doctor's face is a mask of calm, his voice neutral, how can he be so blasé when River's world is spinning off-course? "I'm a thousand years old, unless I'm lying again, which I might. You think it so impossible that I've been in love?" The words stick in his throat and he has to force them out.

"Are you certain that you're using the right tenses, sweetie?" River's hearts tightened unbearably. The Doctor did not answer and River knows now why she is fighting for his hearts.


	15. Five Times Rose Wanted the Doctor

The first time, she dismissed it. Sex-deprived, locked in a box with a gorgeous man, was it any wonder that her thoughts drifted?

The second time, she was green with jealousy. Lynda with a y blatantly flirting with the Doctor, the man whom Rose was beginning to accept that she had an intense crush on.

The third time, she realized that the new man with the Doctor's name was still him. And didn't that fuel her fantasies, especially now that it was over with Mickey.

The fourth time, he was all cheek, easy smiles and not-quite flirting, settled into his new persona. A new man, and still just as intriguing (and good-looking) as the first time they'd met.

The fifth time, she thought that he might feel something beyond friendship for her. How many people can perfectly sculpt the body of a *friend* from memory?

And then they were on the beach again and he was kissing her; her head was spinning as she kissed him back. She may have been back in the parallel world to stay, but he was staying with her.


	16. College AU (Twelve)

It was a strange relationship. They saw each other every day, and yet kept the appearance of being perfect strangers when nothing could be further than the truth. She knew that he'd been married once, had children (grandchildren, even), all of whom were gone now. She knew that he was older, far older, than she was, but she didn't care.

She'd applied for the scholarship on a whim, never dreaming that she might have a chance at winning. What sort of university wanted students who were broke, who didn't have their GCSEs or formal education beyond Year Eleven? No one at home had understood why she'd wanted to go on to the university, though her lack of finishing her education was apparent enough.

His class ran twice a week, eight-thirty in the morning. And yet those were the days that she dreaded the most. Those were the days that he was gone, long before she awoke, every trace of him vanished except his scent left on the pillow beside her. And the dirty dishes in the kitchen sink. The musky smell in the shower.

Those were the days when she had to pretend not to know him. It was hard to daydream in a class and _not_ ogle your lover, even if he was the professor. Sometimes, she'd catch him looking at her for just a moment longer than normal; his eyes grew darker when he'd catch another (younger) man watching her. She was _his_ , and he planned to show the world as soon as she was ready. Not that he didn't show the world in small ways already. He'd left a love bite on her collarbone the night before, and he'd swelled with pride when she came to class with it uncovered. Even if he couldn't publicly claim her, the world knew that she was not available.

They travelled the world together, avoiding tourist traps, and getting into trouble. They were free, then, free to be whomever they wished, and free to be _together_. She liked the freedom travel brought to their relationship, being able to hold his hand or kiss his cheek or snog him as thoroughly as she pleased whenever she pleased. He rarely let go of her hand, or rather her waist as he would often slip his arm around her body, pulling her in close. She loved the closeness of his embrace and the soft kisses he would press to the top of her head. He loved seeing the world, anew through her eyes, lit with excitement and wonder.


	17. Teacher AU (Two)

Music was something to be enjoyed. A catchy pop song playing on the radio or bad karaoke at the pub. Music was not what woke one up at six in the morning, a tinny recorder coming from the flat upstairs. Rose was no stranger to practicing music, having been an off-again, on-again backup singer in her ex's band. But that was music. Guitars and drums and singing. Music.

Rose rolled over, pulling her pillow over her head. Her neighbour continued to play, and she knew that he would not stop for at least an hour. Sometimes, she wondered whether he knew that someone lived downstairs. Sometimes, she wondered if the recorder was a real instrument. Occasionally, he was joined by another on bagpipes. Always, at six o'clock in the morning.

Exactly thirty minutes later, her alarm clock rang. Why she always set her alarm clock when her neighbour would be practicing a half hour before that was a mystery, even to herself. Sighing, Rose finally got up, keeping her comforter draped securely over her body, heading for the loo.

Seven o'clock came and went, and Rose was heading out the door for work. She told herself she was lucky to have this job as a teaching assistant at the primary school, but that didn't make it any easier to dredge herself out of bed in the morning. Her mother had forwarded her a letter from Tony's teachers, who had been looking for a TA for the younger grade. Rose helped in the art classes. Art had been one of the things that she had been good at in school, before she'd left. Art, and PE; maths and science had never held her interest.

"Oh, yes, so sorry. Do excuse me, I'm trying to find the music room." A man, holding a recorder ploughed straight into Rose as she entered the school. "It's my first day, and I've already been by the office twice," he admitted.

"It's right across the art room. I'm heading that way myself, I'm the TA. Rose Tyler," she extended her hand.

"John Smith," he shifted a narrow velvety bag to his left hand and took hers. "Music."

Rose's eyes were on the bag. "Is that a recorder?"

"Oh, er, yes. I've been trying to teach myself before I had to teach these kids. I'm afraid my neighbours must think I'm crazy, practicing away before school starts. I've a friend who plays the bagpipes, actually, and he's been trying to help me learn music properly." John admitted.

"This is the art room. Music is just at the end of the corridor, on the left." Rose's hand hovered over the handle. It was only eight. The first art class wasn't until nine. "When do your classes start?"

"Nine, I believe." John dumped his bag on the desk at the front of the room, rifling through papers. "Aha," he muttered, pulling out a sheet. "Music. Year fours. Oh, my giddy aunt. Never thought I'd end up in here."

"Good luck. Year fours this year are quite a handful. Though I should say that Year sixes are also not the best students at the moment, what with the SATs next month." Rose relayed some stories about the students in her classes. "But don't let this go to your head, yeah? Let them have a chance to present themselves."

"Thank you, Miss Tyler." John looked to the clock. "I really should organize these papers. I suppose that I should be somewhat organized when I meet the students."

"Sorting the music?" Rose asked curiously. At John's nod, she continued: "I used to sing in a band, never learned how to read music, though."

"Anyone famous?" John asked, starting to sort through the music.

"Nah," Rose scoffed. "ex-boyfriend, some sorta screamo or emo or I don't really know. My voice didn't really fit in with the band, only filled in a coupl'a times. If you don't play the recorder, what is your instrument, music teacher?"

"Flute," John's eyes lit up. "It's related to the recorder, of course, but the mouthpiece is completely different. It's also much easier to achieve quality tone." He went on, comparing the two instruments. Rose lingered, listening to his descriptions with interest, though she wasn't interested in the flute. Or the recorder. At John's request, she deposited one copy of each piece onto the music stands while he got out the class's set of recorders.

"Just look at the state of these. It's no wonder the students are very good," he moaned, appraising the instruments.

"Not very good quality?" Rose surmised. She stifled a laugh at John's grimace. "I know the feeling. You should see the condition of the art supplies. Brushes with bent bristles, the easels have pen marks all over them, half the paint is dried out because nobody ever replaces the lids when they've finished." She glanced at the clock, starting with surprise. "Well, I suppose that time flies when you're having fun. That or your classroom is actually a sort of time machine into the future." Rose laughed gently.

"Wish me luck?" John smiled hopefully.

"Good luck," Rose said, not bothering to contain a grin. "You'll need it," she added, already halfway down the corridor.


	18. Two Broken Hearts (Twelve)

There is a third photograph in the office, hidden away from the view of the students and from Nardole. There have been enough questions about River and Susan, and the Doctor shudders to think what Nardole would say about the occupant of this photograph. He runs his thumb along the frame, his worn face unconsciously softening. Not for the first time, he wonders why the TARDIS all but forced him to take these photographs into the office.

The significance of the people in the pictures is clear enough, to the Doctor at least. River Song, a friend he'd seen for the last time while knowing that she was going to her death in the Library, a friend whose parents _he_ had been responsible for and lost, a friend who had loved him, a love that he'd tried to reciprocate but never got quite right. Why River's picture was here was very clear. And Susan. Oh, but he _missed_ her. He'd thought, vaguely, that perhaps if he saw her every day that he might work up the nerve to check in on her. That was what grandfathers were supposed to do, look out for their grandchildren. But Susan was not a child, and hadn't been when she'd left the TARDIS all those centuries ago (from his perspective of course, for her it had only been a mere fifty-three years).

Slowly, the Doctor removes the third photograph from where it was hidden, placing it on the desk beside the others. It frames a woman, this one bottled blonde. She, unlike the others, is smiling. Not that River had known in that instance that it would be near-immortalized in a picture, nor had Susan ever realized that he would still carry her school photo. Footsteps echo from the corridor and the Doctor quickly hides the frame under some papers.

"You have students looking for you." It was only Nardole.

"You know my office hours," the Doctor replies airily, at least, as airily as his Scottish brogue allows.

"And they started twenty minutes ago," Nardole says, annoyed. "And besides, I'm not your secretary."

"No?" The Doctor asks as Nardole leaves. He takes Rose's picture from under the papers, looking into her hazel eyes. _I miss you_ , he thinks. _I'm allowed to miss you_ (even though he'd sent her away), _but do you ever miss me?_ He doesn't suppose that she does, after all she should be living quite happily with his Metacrisis self. Still, he hopes, rather selfishly, that she thinks of this him on occasion, that she still wonders about the man with two broken hearts.


	19. Tentoo

**Notes:** Slightly NSFW. Touching.

* * *

They'd sort of adopted the date as his birthday. The fifth of July, the day that this him had been created, the anniversary of the Dalek Crucible, the day that he'd promised Rose a forever to match hers. The Doctor reckons that it's been roughly ten years linearly in their original universe, ten years that have been stretched to thirty in this universe. They're older, both of them – his hair, though still fantastic, is thinner and Rose has long since stopped applying bleach – but they have each other and the TARDIS. They stop in once a week at the Estate, piloting the TARDIS accurately as so to keep the timeline synched. This TARDIS is less temperamental, though she still has a mind of her own. The Doctor says it's because she's young, so much younger than her sister, and because they are her first pilots (for Rose knows exactly how to pilot her – at times, she lands smoother than the Doctor).

Rose still thinks about him at times, the Doctor with two hearts in the original universe. She wonders if he's regenerated (she daren't think that he's used up his last), what his companions are like, what new aliens he's met, what old enemies he's encountered. She loves him dearly, but she has her Doctor. Her Doctor, with one heart, one lifetime that he chose to spend with her. She remembers that second fated day in Norway well, and she'll always treasure the words he whispered in her ear.

"Hey," she rolled over, her head raised from her pillow to look at him, "happy," she kissed him, "birthday," she kissed his throat, "Doctor." Rose continued to slowly trail kisses down his body. The Doctor hummed contently. "I'd suggest that you get up to open your presents, but perhaps you'd rather open something else up first," Rose ran her fingers through his (thinning) hair, smirking when she felt his erection. "Best open it up quickly, love, it's Wednesday, and you _know_ that Mum hates it when we're late for tea."

The Doctor groaned at the mention of Jackie. "But Rose, it's barely breakfast."

"Yes, well, you _know_ how you like to carry on," she purred, kissing his throat again. She felt the Doctor shiver beside her. "I think those jim jams need to go, love." She adopted an expression of fake horror. "Unless, of course, you don't _want_ your birthday present?"

The Doctor practically growled.

"That's what I thought." Rose smirked. Slowly, she began to undress. Though it was summer, she'd prepared for today, wearing multiple garments to bed last night. Her nightdress came over her head easily and Rose watched as the Doctor took in her attire. "Happy birthday, Doctor," she whispered, leaning in to kiss him again. Her hand slipped into his trousers, and she smirked. The Doctor inhaled sharply before spitting out her name.


	20. Doomsday Fix-it (Ten Twelve)

Notes: All recognizable dialogue ( _italicized_ ) taken directly from 'Doomsday' as written by Russell T Davies.

" _But it's like you said. We've all got Void stuff. Me too, because we went to that parallel world. We're all contaminated. We'll get pulled in_." Rose said, her brow furrowed.

" _That's why you've got to go_." The Doctor looked at her. The computer said something, but Rose wasn't paying it any mind. " _Back to Pete's world. Hey, we should call it that. Pete's World. I'm opening the Void, but only on this side. You'll be safe on that side_."

" _And then you close it, for good_?" Pete. She'd forgotten that he was there. Rose briefly wondered when her not-father was going to leave.

" _The breach itself is soaked in Void stuff. In the end it'll close itself. And that's it. Kaput_." The Doctor explained.

" _But you stay on this side_?" Always self-sacrificing, always trying to keep her safe. She'd told him that she was never going to leave, hoping beyond hope that he'd eventually believe her.

" _But you'll get pulled in_." Mickey. He'd ended up to be friends, of a sort, with the Doctor. He'd grown so much over the last few years. Rose knew that she'd miss him desperately, but she also knew that staying with the Doctor was the only thing she could do.

" _That's why I got these. I'll just have to hold on tight. I've been doing it all my life_." For a genius, the Doctor certainly could be thick.

" _I'm supposed to go_." Her voice was thick with disbelief.

" _Yeah_." His voice was dead.

" _To another world, and then it gets sealed off_." He wasn't going to do this her, not again.

" _Yeah_."

" _Forever. That's not going to happen_."

" _We haven't got time to argue. The plan works. We're going. You too. All of us."_ It was Pete.

"No," Rose said firmly. "Mum, you go with Pete to the other universe. Twenty years without Dad, you have a second chance. To get it right. Happily ever after."

"I'm not leaving without you," Jackie said, affronted.

"Mum, you've got to. _I've had a life with you for nineteen years, but then I met the Doctor, and all the things I've seen him do for me, for you, for all of us. For the whole stupid planet and every planet out there. He does it alone, mum. But not anymore, because now he's got me_." Rose turned sharply to face the Doctor. "And don't you dare. Don't you dare send me away, not again. I've been remembering things, bits and pieces, from the Game Station. You didn't sing a song to the Daleks and they just ran away. You died, and it was all my fault, wasn't it?"

"Rose," the Doctor gaped. "We don't have time-"

"No, Doctor, we don't. Tell me the truth. I was the Bad Wolf, wasn't I? All the times those words appeared, it was me, wasn't it?" Rose pressed.

"If I say yes, will you go with Pete and Jackie?" The Doctor asked carefully, his voice flat.

"No," Rose said fiercely. "Tell me the truth. I killed you, didn't I?" Her face fell, her hand flew to her mouth. "I killed you," she said faintly.

"No, Rose, but," he was cut off.

"No, Doctor. Because I remember, mostly. Jack's not rebuilding the Earth, is he? He's dead." Rose's voice broke. "Jack's dead, and I killed you. That's why you're sending me away, isn't it? I'm too dangerous to be runnin' about in space and time." She waited for him to deny it. He didn't. "That settles it. Mum, you've got to go. I love you, and we had twenty years together and then I met the Doctor. It's like what I told you before, the last time he tried to send me away."

Jackie opened her mouth, as if to protest, then closed it, nodding. "Of course, sweetheart." She pulled her daughter in close.

"I love you, Mum," Rose choked.

"I love you," Jackie held her daughter a moment longer, then stepped back to Pete. Before anyone could stop her, she'd looped two hoppers round their necks and they disappeared back to Pete's World.

 _Systems rebooted. Open access._

" _Those coordinates over there, set them all at six. And hurry up_." The Doctor snipped. She wasn't supposed to be here. Time was in flux, he could see new timelines opening up.

 _Levers operational._

" _That's more like it. Bit of a smile. The old team_." Rose grinned.

" _Hope and Glory, Mutt and Jeff, Shiver and Shake_."

" _Which one's Shiver_?"

" _Oh, I'm Shake_." The Doctor produced a pair of Magnaclamps. _"Press the red button."_ He was about to say more when a gust of wind whistled through the corridor, accompanied by a faint wheezing. There, about two feet behind them, the TARDIS was materializing.

"I thought the TARDIS was parked in that loading area," Rose said curiously.

"She is." The Doctor frowned. "Time's in flux," he commented, sounding surprised.

A older man stepped out of the new TARDIS. "Rose," his voice was distinctly Scottish, "in the TARDIS. Pretty Boy, shut up -" ("I didn't say a word," the Doctor protested.) "and allow me to fix my timeline.

"You're me?" The Doctor said incredulously. "I regenerate into… _that_."

"I'd forgotten how vain I was," the man commented. "Rose, please go in the TARDIS. It's the safest place you could possibly be." His face was lined, but his eyes were ancient. Looking into them, Rose felt the same sensation as when she'd looked into the Doctor's eyes just after he'd regenerated.

"Hello," she said, uncertainly. "Won't the Reapers come?"

"Time's in flux. What was about to happen, what I've averted from happening, was _not_ a fixed point. Which is how _he_ failed to see it coming. Of course, I'm still changing my personal history, but," he took Rose's arms in his hands, "you are worth it. Always."

"Doctor," Rose looked into his eyes. "How long?"

"Too long," was his only verbal response. "But," he clapped his hands together, "that's what we're changing isn't it? Exciting, I know, but Rose, you need to stay in the TARDIS. You'll be safe there, even if the Reapers come. And your safety is paramount. If anything happens to Sandshoes there, he'll regenerate. Not entirely certain what would happen to me after that, but that's not important. If anything happens to me without something happening to him, I'll regenerate. But you," he kissed her forehead, "you, Rose, can not regenerate and therefore must stay in the TARDIS." The new Doctor made eye contact with his younger self. "When Rose looked into the Vortex, she became the Bad Wolf."

"I know that just as well as you do." The Doctor said crossly.

"Jack's immortal."

"I know that too," the Doctor hissed. "Why else did we leave him there? A fixed point in time held _inside_ the TARDIS?"

"You know, but you don't understand," the Doctor said, his voice sharpened by his Scottish accent.

"Understand what? You've clearly had ample time to think this over, _Doctor_."

"Bad Wolf left herself a key, hidden in her mind, to let her out of the box we locked her in. It was burning Rose's mind, so we took it out of her. But in her wake, she left the potential to change Rose's brain chemistry, to create a fixed point in time that was constantly in flux." The older Doctor finished dramatically. The Doctor blinked. "Right now, if you look at Rose, her timeline is in flux. Bad Wolf saw this during the events at the Game Station and manifested herself a nice little niche in the back of Rose's mind so that she could come back."

"We don't have time for this, _Doctor_ ," the Doctor snapped. "Any minute, the Cybermen will be here and we've got to be ready to dump them into the Void. It's our only chance."

"Quite right," the Doctor replied. "It's _our_ only chance. Not Rose's. And if Rose waits for us _in the TARDIS_ while we deal with the Cybermen, then we can help her." He looked past his younger self to Rose. "But if you lose her to Pete's World today, then I can't help her."

Rose looked from the older Doctor to her Doctor. "He's you. I trust you absolutely. I'll wait in the TARDIS, but you had better come back and explain what's going on. _Both_ of you." She turned to walk back but stopped when the older Doctor called her name.

"In my timeline, I never had the oppor-, I never _took_ the opportunity."

"Opportunity? What opportunity?"

"Any of them. There were so many times that I wanted to do this," he broke off, placing his hands on her cheeks. Rose looked into his eyes, knowing what he wanted to do.

"Doctor," she whispered, closing her own eyes trustingly.

"I've missed you," he said, kissing her forehead. "Rose Tyler. Now, TARDIS, go." He smiled reassuringly, before turning back to the younger Doctor. The Doctor waited until Rose had shut the door to his TARDIS to speak. "Before you say a word, know that I am taking full responsibility for changing my own timeline. You know that Time is in flux, a fixed point is being altered. Yes, it was a fixed point in time, but _not any more_."

"How did you change it?" The Doctor asked.

"Spoilers," the Doctor replied, after a moment of silence. "The Cybermen will be – " he was cut off by a Dalek.

"Magna-clamp and lever NOW!" The Doctor shouted urgently, his Scottish accent thick. The younger Doctor followed suit immediately. "Open the breach and the Void will suck up the Daleks and Cybermen." The older Doctor threw something to his younger self. "Tie yourself to the clamp. If you get sucked into the Void, it'll cause a paradox."

"No thanks to you." The Doctor gritted his teeth, tying himself up nonetheless.

"I'm changing my personal timeline, doing what _you_ ought to have done in the first place."

"If this works, you might fade from existence," the younger Doctor spat. "Why would you," he stopped, realization dawning on his face.

"This was the day I lost her. Because of my own arrogance and thick-headedness, I didn't think clearly enough to save Rose. And even though she had a happy ending, a new beginning even, I am far too old and selfish not to save her if I can." The Doctor said quietly. "And as for what happened after I lost her, well, I've no doubt that TARDIS will still take you where you need to go. Where I needed to go," he said, clearly briefly reminiscing of a memory. The Doctor knotted a rope to his own magna-clamp, knowing that his lever would slip. He'd just gotten a new regeneration cycle after all, and he didn't fancy spending it entirely in the company of Jackie Tyler without his TARDIS.

"How long?" The younger Doctor asked softly. "Tell me how long it's been since today for you."

"I don't know. Twenty-four years on Darillium, two thousand years in the confession dial, nine hundred years on Trenzalore… it's added up."

"So why now?"

"Because it was only when I saw my wife for the last time that I realized how much I'd truly _loved_ Rose." The Doctor admitted. "I say wife, only because she said husband and it became a habit. River loved to banter, and who was I to deny her? Not when I was all she had left, because _I_ lost her parents." The Doctor looked up and saw the approaching Cyber-army. "Levers, now."

The void opened. Daleks and Cybermen were flying past the two Doctors. Dalek Sec once more manages to save himself, but the Genesis Ark speeds into the void. The Doctor knows that the lever is about to slip and tests his knots. They hold. He closes his eyes, then lets go of the clamp. The lever falls. It takes all his energy to move it upright once more, but he manages. His rope is taut, and his arms are longer than Rose's, and he easily reaches the lever, collapsing over it in a heap. Just as it did for Rose in his original timeline, as soon as it locks in upright, the suction of the Void becomes much stronger. He holds on as the Void seals, collapsing in a heap on the ground. It's over. And Rose is safe.


	21. (Not) Her Boyfriend (Nine)

Notes: I've actually been busy attempting a longer fic, and so haven't posted very many ficlets, let alone completed any bingo squares. So have a ficlet.

"No, Mum, I can't ask him to take me home. _Why_? Mum, what if he doesn't come back? He's already gone and missed a year, I can't risk that again. I _know_ it's been a while since I saw Cousin Mo." Rose's voice softened. "I know, Mum. Mo's the only family _we've_ got, too. I'll speak to the designated driver, but 'm starting to think that the TARDIS pilots herself sometimes. You too." Rose hung up her mobile, thinking ponderously. Cousin Mo's twenty-second birthday was looming, from her mother's perception of time, and it had been nearly two years (from Rose's perspective) since she'd seen her cousin (three years, counting the one Rose had missed, from Mo's point of view).

The Doctor was waiting for her in the corridor. Rose blinked. "Hello," she smiled.

He beamed. "Hullo. No detour to the wardrobe this 'morning'?""

Rose looked down at her jeans. "Nah, I figured I'd check out the scene first, then decide if I needed a change or if I'd rather make a scene," she joked.

"Where to?" He'd taken her hand and had his hand on the controls before she'd had time to answer.

"Mum'd like a visit," Rose hedged.

"Saw her last week, didn't you?" The Doctor deflected. "Anywhere and any- _when_ , Rose! Barcelona? Did I ever tell you about Barcelona? The planet, I mean, not the city. Or Clom! Usually a rather dull planet, but Saturday mornings, the local Disney Land is a fantastic sight. People from all over the galaxy visit Clom's Disney resorts, though they do tend to avoid the locals. Or the trees on Felspoon. Picture a sunset. Now forget it. These skies turn purple to green to orange, one of the best colour combinations in the galaxy. And when the stars appear, they're so much brighter than the ones you lot see from Earth. Brighter, and closer, and we can go back and see them before anyone else in the universe has the chance to."

Rose sighed deeply, smiling, thinking about all the lovely places that the Doctor had described. "It's my cousin's birthday," she started uncertainly. The Doctor fixed his stare at the console. "I haven't seen her in three years, Doctor. When we were kids, she used to get Mum to do her hair all the time. And once she had her hair done, it only took her a few minutes to put together an 'ensemble' (as she called it) together from Mum's wardrobe. One for her, one for me. We were practically best mates, 'cept for Mickey o' course."

"All of time and space, wherever _you_ wish to go," the Doctor said simply. "Powell Estate, London. What's the date, then?"

"Twentieth of August. 2006." Rose patted a coral strut hopefully. "But what'll you do?" She had a sudden vision of the Doctor leaving, and this time never coming back instead of simply skipping a year.

"One might think that nine hundred years would give me some ideas of how to pass the time," the Doctor smirked. "Time machine."

Rose dared not suggest that he accompany her. "You'll meet me in the flat?" She asked hopefully.

"Might," the Doctor shrugged. "I do have a phone, Rose." He opened his arms, and Rose hugged him.

"Yeah, but would you answer it?" Rose couldn't help but tease.

"Might," the Doctor repeated, noncommittedly.

"Right, then," Rose said brazenly, "you come back at a decent hour, hear? I don't want to hear those engines in twenty years, with some sort o' tree woman in tow."

The Doctor smirked enigmatically. "Go home. Rose Tyler." He flipped a lever and Rose could suddenly hear a startled scream from outside. "That'd be your mother, I presume."

"You'd better hope so." She waved a finger at him. "Else you've got some explaining to do."

"Me? I'm not even here." The TARDIS began to dematerialize around Rose. She smiled sadly at the vanishing image of the Doctor until she was left staring at the blank telly. She wasn't alone long, however, as she was quickly enveloped in a hug from her mother.

"Oh, you're _home_! I nearly thought that you weren't going to make it, said to Bev the other day. I said, Bev,"

"Mum," Rose rolled her eyes, amused by Jackie's antics.

Jackie hugged her daughter closer. "All right, enough about me, how are you? And be ready to leave in two hours, don't want to be late!" She paused a moment, looking Rose over. "I suppose you'll be needing in the loo. Must admit, I've sort of gotten used to taking a bit o' time getting ready. But no matter," Jackie smiled. "You're home! Give me ten minutes to wash up, then you get on." Rose nodded, absently wondering what she had in her own closet that would be nice enough to wear. She'd started to favour darker colours recently, and had shied away from the pink that had dominated her apparel.

Opening the door to her old bedroom, Rose stopped in shock. She must have stood there, staring, for a good fifteen minutes until Jackie came up to tell her that the loo was free. "Rose, aren't you going to shower? I thought you said – blimey, that's gorgeous." Rose nodded.

There was a dress laying across her duvet. It was impossible not to notice immediately – the dark blue stood out proudly against the chequered pink blanket. There was a note laying off to the side. Smartly handwritten, it read:

 _Courtesy of the TARDIS. Wanted you to have something different for tonight if required._

Short and to the point. Rose reached out, touching the soft fabric reverently. The Doctor had remembered why she'd gone home and, more impossibly, had given her a dress (far sleeker than anything she'd ever owned) just for the occasion. If she'd ever believed in fairy tales, the Doctor was her knight in shining armour. He just never seemed to realize a knight generally kissed the princess after he saved her.

Moving on from that thought (or at least shoving it to the back of her mind), Rose quickly showered before tying up her old robe. Having heard the doors banging, Jackie shouted for her to come across the hall. Rose tightened her sash, padding into her mother's room. Jackie promptly began to comb Rose's hair, easily styling it into a loose updo.

The dress was easily dressed down – it was only her cousin's party, after all – with a faded denim jacket and a pair of patterned stockings. Perhaps it was becoming a habit after spending so much time with the Doctor, but Rose opted for her boots. They were far more comfortable than any heels she owned, and she was starting to realize that at any moment, while with the Doctor at least, if she needed to start running, boots were far more practical than high heeled pumps.

The bus to Peak District was long and tiresome for Rose. It had been nearly a year since she'd been on a bus and she found that she'd quite gotten used to just appearing at her next, often unplanned, destination. She'd fidgeted nearly the whole way, making light conversation with Jackie when spoken to.

"Rose!" A grin split the older girl's face as she raced forward to embrace her cousin. "It's been too long!" Rose smiled, hugging Mo. "And Aunt Jaqs. How's everything up in London?"

"Good," Jackie answered, looking at her daughter.

"Yeah? That's great! How's Mickey, Rose?" Mo began a tirade of questions. Mickey, Jackie's current boyfriend ("Boyfriends, perhaps?" "There's always Jimbo, but truth be told, he's pretty useless."), the shop, the Estate. "So you finally broke up with Mickey, eh? Good on you, Rose. Sounds like he was already over you, how many dates did he go on with that Trishie girl before you broke it off, anyway?"

"Just the one," Rose said defensively. "Anyway, he's still my best mate. We're just not together anymore. It just, it got so dull. Eat chips, watch football, make out a bit, and watch more footie. It was like I got stuck in some rut or something."

"Whatever you say, Rosie." Mo beamed. "I've got a couple o' mates coming, should be here soon. They've promised to behave, but fair warning – they can get a bit randy."

Mo's idea of a party was simple. Beer, crisps, with some cheese (there was a bit of mould on the end, easily scraped off) and loud music. Nevertheless, Rose enjoyed herself. This was the atmosphere she'd grown up in, and it was a comfort to come back to something so familiar after all the aliens she'd met and the foreign places she'd seen. So of course the Doctor would slip in, practically unnoticed, looking as though he were looking after an alien threat. Her curiosity getting the better of her, Rose followed him – Mo had gone off to talk to some friends, Jackie had made her way to the drink table for another round.

"What are you doing here?" Rose stepped forward, looking at the Doctor's face.

"Rose? I thought you'd swanned off with your mother." He said, looking (was she imagining?) slightly crestfallen.

"M here with Mum," Rose told him off. "Mum, Cousin Mo, few of her friends. Go on, then – why are you here and not off in the TARDIS?"

"Did you actually think that I ever left Earth when you weren't in the TARDIS? I might be the 'designated driver' (as you put it) in your mind, but the TARDIS goes where she wants. Usually, we're in agreement about where or when that should be."

Rose was staring at him in shock. "So when I missed a year?"

"That _was_ the TARDIS," he bristled. "It was important that we were in London to stop the Slitheen from nuking the planet, in case you'd forgotten."

"You still haven't told me why you're in my cousin's house," Rose repeated. It was at that moment that Mo reappeared.

"Roooose!" She giggled. "Rose, you're missing the party over here by yourself," she slurred some of her vowels, dropped some consonants – partly due to her accent, partly because of the amount of alcohol she had already imbibed. After a moment, she noticed the Doctor. "Hello gorgeous," she smiled.

"Hello. I take it that you're Rose's cousin. Mo, was it?" The Doctor smiled tightly.

"He knows my name," Mo half-shouted, though on her part she appeared to be attempting a whisper. "So you're the man Rosie dumped old Mickey for, eh? Good on you Rose," she turned back to her cousin, "he's a real looker."

"Mo," Rose snapped, mortified. The Doctor didn't know, _couldn't know_ , how she really felt about him. Mo looked from Rose to the Doctor and once more to her cousin.

"Oh," she said quietly. "You're not…"

"He's not my boyfriend, Mo." Rose looked over at the Doctor nervously. It was far from the first time that someone had assume they were a couple – Jabe, Adam, and even her own father had made that supposition - but it felt different to deny it to someone she knew quite well.

"Well, maybe he should be." Mo grinned, disappearing back into the crowd.

"Sorry about her," Rose blustered. "Does this happen to you a lot? You must have had some other friends in the TARDIS before me?"

The Doctor didn't answer. "Funny how nearly everyone we've met assumes we're together." He said slowly. "Never happened, maybe once, before I ran into you."

"Must have something to do with," Rose started a quip, but couldn't quite figure out how to end it.

"Even someone slightly telepathic – like Jabe – could sense it. Hell, even your mother could see that I was, am, attracted to you."

 _That I was, am, attracted to you_. The Doctor's words swirled in her mind. Before Rose's mouth caught up to her mind, the Doctor had turned and started to walk away, his tall frame easily parting the crowd.

"Doctor!" She called, hurrying after him. He turned, a look of disbelief on his face. Rose smiled, a smile full of hope and bright eyes full of adoration. She reached for him and he took her hands in his, a gesture that was already so familiar. But this time, he was holding both her hands – loosely at their sides – with her entire (small) family to see.


	22. Forever (Tentoo)

"Doctor?" Rose poked her head into the hotel room that Jackie had booked for him as soon as it had become apparent that they were not going to make it back to London that night. She'd only left him, this him, twenty minutes ago, but already she'd needed to see him again, to reassure herself that today hadn't been a delusional dream. To see that the Doctor was here, with her.

The Doctor leapt from the bed. " _Rose_ ," he said, voice ragged.

"Doctor, what's wrong?" Rose was at his side instantly. She'd never heard him like this before, his voice so rough and broken, face red.

"My head," he whimpered. "It's so, so _empty_." His face was twisted in pain.

"It'll be fine," Rose soothed him. "What's wrong?"

"The TARDIS," the Doctor said shakily. "When I, when the other me," he broke off.

"You're still you," Rose said gently. "Until you… grew… you were and still are you."

"When I stole her, all those years ago," the Doctor said clearly, his eyes closed, "we… bonded. A TARDIS bonds with her pilots, creates a sort of mental connection."

"Like how she translates?"

"That's a lot more basic, but a similar premise. She's been in my head, every second of my existence, for the past few hundred years. And now she's _gone_ ," his voice cracked.

"Is there any way I can help?" Rose asked, feeling helpless. "You bonded with her, is there a similar mental… thing that we could do?"

"Rose, I can't ask that of you. You might not be able to sustain it, I might not even be able to initiate –"

"Tell me," Rose said firmly. She threaded her fingers through his. "Tell me what to do."

"If it does work, it's permanent. Rose, I need to you to understand that this isn't something to enter into lightly."

"If it helps you, that's all I need to know," Rose kissed his hand lightly. "I'm holding you to what you said on that beach, yeah? Forever."

"Forever," the Doctor echoed.

"Yes, I'm certain," Rose anticipated his question. "I'm already counting on spending the rest of our lives _together_. If we can add something more from your culture to our life, then the answer is always _yes_."

"Rose," he searched her eyes longingly.

"My Doctor," she smiled hopefully, reassuringly. "If it's something that you want, then I want it too." The Doctor seemed to uneasily gauge her response. "I love you. All of you." Not breaking eye contact, he lifted his hands to just above her temples. His fingers trembled, ever so slightly, until Rose placed her own hands on top of his. "Whenever you're ready."

The Doctor pressed his hands to her temples. Rose… sensed a tiny blue thread in her consciousness. "Doctor?" She breathed.

"Try to walk towards me. In your mind, move yourself towards me. I should be something small, almost unnoticeable,"

"You're beautiful," Rose sighed happily, following the blue thread.

The emptiness in the Doctor's head subsided now that he was (temporarily) connected to Rose. He instantly was more relaxed, more at ease with himself. He wondered how long this bond would hold, how long Rose would be able to stand being linked to him in such an intimate way.

 _Forever_ , her mental signature was aglow, golden tendrils furling around his mind. _My Doctor._

 _Rose_ , he thought, feeling a wave of love washing over him. _You're projecting, love_. He tried the endearment, quite liking how it rolled off, well, not his tongue, but the mental equivalent. The emotion intensified.

 _I know_.


	23. Soulmates

_Having a compass soul mark made no sense at all_ , thought the Doctor, flicking a knob on the TARDIS' console. It was as useful for finding his soulmate as a couple of tin cans connected with string. Most of the time, it spun, constantly changing directions as it searched for the person he was supposedly destined to spend his life with. Most Gallifreyans ignored their soul marks, content to spend their lives in a pre-arranged political union. Susan had found David purely by chance, in the aftermath of a Dalek warzone. The Doctor's soul mark always pointed toward the Earth, and so he spent much of his time on the tiny planet.

Rose Tyler's soul mark was, as her best friend Shireen put it, "complicated at best, completely batshit at worst." When it had first appeared, they had thought it had been a sort of logogram – written in a Chinese or Korean variant. Not only had it not been any language like these – Rose's marks were made of circles – but they had been unable to find anyone with similar marks. The marks were often a source of frustration to Rose, who spent hours trying to decipher the strange marks.

The moment he grabbed the young human girl's hand in a London shop basement, the Doctor's compass pointed firmly to his right. He brushed it off as coincidence that the girl happened to have grabbed his right hand as they fled the Autons. He didn't, he _couldn't_ have a soulmate. No one who had done the things he had could ever have someone tied to them, especially someone so young and innocent.

The moment before a strange man took her hand, pulling her behind him out of Henrick's before it exploded, Rose felt her strange soul mark burn. He told her to run, and she did, instinctively trusting him. When she saw the symbols on the monitor in the console room of the TARDIS, she realized that her soul marks were _his_ language. But he never showed any indication of being her soulmate, and so Rose was content to leave the mark be.

Rose Tyler was his soulmate. Even after he regenerated, her hand continued to fit perfectly in his; she was always his true North. He felt himself falling in love with her, and it was growing harder to hide it. Even in this younger, _prettier_ body, the Doctor was still too old and cowardly to confront Rose about her own soul marks.

When a man wearing his face, with his memories, feeling his emotions kissed her, the double-hearted Doctor felt them both break. Rose Tyler was his soulmate, and he would spend the rest of his life with her. It just happened that he wasn't himself.

When a man with one heart kissed her, he felt his singular heart swell with joy. Rose Tyler was his soulmate, and he now had the one life to match hers.


	24. Yellow Muffins (Ten)

"Oi!" The Doctor yelped, clutching his now-stinging reddened hand to his chest. "What'd you go and do that for?"

"They're still cooling, you daft alien," Jackie said, crossing her arms. "Just took it out of the oven."

"Wait," he eyed the steaming loaves with suspicion. "They _are_ banana breads, aren't they?" Jackie, still cross, didn't answer. "Thought you couldn't cook," he said snidely, trying not to let on that his hand still hurt.

"Managed Christmas dinner well enough, thanks," Jackie bantered back easily.

"Might've added a new setting to the sonic," the Doctor smirked.

"So it does turkey?"

"Care to find out?" He waggled his eyebrows, looking so much like a lost puppy that Jackie had to stifle a laugh.

"Not particularly." Jackie eyed the Doctor suspiciously.

"Where's Rose?"

"How should I know? You see more of her these days than I do," she snapped. Then, "she's in that box of yours. Changin' round some of her things. Pictures and the like." Smirking at the Doctor's shocked expression, she continued: "She does live in the box, doesn't she? Spends more time there than here, that's for certain. Why shouldn't she have her keepsakes with her?

 _Because she's going to stay with me forever. But I'm still going to lose her and then I'll have boxes and boxes of her things and I won't be able to cope with the loss._

"No reason," he replied airily. "I just don't usually have passengers on the TARDIS who actually move in." It was true – though his companions often stayed onboard for at least one (relative) year, they often lived entirely aboard the ship without personal belongings.

"I said to wait until they've cooled." Jackie swatted the Doctor's hands as he once more reached for her cooling loaves. "If you must stick your fingers in something, try this," she handed him a yellow muffin. Smirking, he took a large bite of his muffin, which was very nearly the same shade as a perfectly ripened banana. And promptly spat it out, frowning.

"It's _apple_ ," he cried, petulantly throwing the muffin at the rubbish bin.

"What'd you expect, custard? Of course it's apple, it's fall, they're in season." Jackie crossed her arms, shaking her head at the daft alien's antics. Rose came out of the TARDIS, rucksack over her shoulder.

"Those smell _amazing_ , Mum," she sank into the chair, reaching for her own muffin. Jackie threw a look at the Doctor, who made a face at her before turning to Rose.

"Ready to go?" He beamed.

"Where to?" Rose's face split into a grin.

"How does the Moon sound?"

"You come back soon," Jackie pressed. Rose smiled, hugging her mother tightly.

"I love you, Mum."

"I love you too, sweetheart." Jackie shook her head. The Moon. Sighing, she grabbed a muffin and was about to taste it when she noticed that one of the banana loaves was missing. Already, the TARDIS was making that wheezing noise that meant it was coming and going. It was like having a five-year-old in the house again, except five-year-olds couldn't disappear into time-and-space whenever they did something 'wrong'.


	25. Fall on an alien planet (Tentoo)

Sometimes, the reality of just how lucky he truly was hit the Doctor. Like right now, holding Rose's hand as they walked down a street in an alien market, their own TARDIS parked inconspicuously next to an empty stall. He squeezed her hand lightly, his face splitting a grin.

"What's that for, then?" Rose smiled, her tongue poking out so that it was just visible. How he loved her smile, his heart skipping a beat. His chest no longer felt empty, not after ten years of only having one heart, not after ten years of being with Rose.

"I love you," was his reply. Simple, but such a grand statement. It encompassed every aspect of his life, his love for Rose Tyler, and he thanked every god he didn't believe in that he was able to say it to her every day.

"I love you." She brought his hand up to her mouth, kissing his knuckles softly. Ten years she hadn't been expecting to spend in this universe, ten years that she would not trade for anything in the multi-verse. Ten years of the Doctor and Rose Tyler, together, in the TARDIS like they should be. That they were still travelling, together, to alien planets and new times was amazing. She finally took her eyes off the Doctor, looking at their surroundings, taking in the colours that reminded her so strongly of fall nights in London. The orange leaves that blanketed the cobblestone street, the tall trees that were lazily losing their leaves.

"Allons-y, Rose Tyler," the Doctor grinned, pulling her alongside him as they ran down a side-street, coats billowing behind them.


	26. Post TIPTSP (Ten)

"It lied," he said fiercely, holding Rose close to him once they were safely in the TARDIS.

"How could you know that?" Rose's voice is muffled by his jacket, but she has never sounded more beautiful. "It said that I was going to die in battle. God knows that we've come across more than enough of those."

The answer is on the tip of his tongue, but he can't seem to give it to her. He wets his lips and tries to say it again. He swallows, forcing the words out. "Because it already happened in your timeline," he finally says.

She pulls back, clearly thinking that something happened to his head.

"Course it hasn't. M right here." Her eyes are wide, fearful.

"We just left the forty-first century. What the Beast was referring to happens on Satellite Five in the year 200,100. Your personal past. Its future." He pulls the lever to send the TARDIS into the Time Vortex, hoping that leaving the planet would redirect the conversation. The TARDIS engines fall silent as she hangs in the nothingness of the Vortex.

"I haven't died, Doctor. Not yet." She says fiercely, remembering his words in the street by Deffry Vale.

She was wrong, of course. But how could he tell her without risking unlocking her memories of Bad Wolf? He said nothing, adjusting knobs, turning dials and flicking switches. A hand is covering the next button. He looks up and sees Rose's face is lined with concern. Concern for him, when she was the one fated to die by the Beast's dire prediction. He allows her to pull him alongside her, out of the console room and far away from the Impossible Planet.


	27. Hay Ride (Tentoo)

timepetalsprompts Fall bingo – Scarecrow, Coffee Shop, Pumpkin Spice and Hay Ride

doctorroseprompts Fall fic fest – Hay Rides

"So? When are we?" Rose grinned, hanging on to the Doctor's arm as he inspected the monitor.

"2015. Sometime in late October… the twenty-fourth. Saturday. Looks like we're in Ontario, Canada. _Canada._ Blimey, it's been a long time since I was in Canada." The Doctor scratched the back of his neck, thinking. "Yes, I came here once. Took someone to a Greenpeace rally. Probably should have picked her up again afterwards but she seemed fine the next time I saw her, no harm done. Well, no physical harm done at any rate."

"Canada's a pretty big country, though, isn't it? Where exactly are we?" Rose opened the door, looking out at the landscape.

"Well, there are plenty of trees around, so most definitely not the Prairies."

"I thought it'd be colder," Rose commented, zipping up her jacket. "Snowing and everything."

"Nah, that's just a stereotype. It snows up north and they don't get daylight for the half the year. It also snows in the east but over on the west coast it just pours rain. Come on, then." The Doctor took Rose by the hand and they exited their TARDIS.

The brightly lit street was filled with people. "What do you say we try out some of the local entertainment?" The Doctor grinned.

Rose grinned, pointing to a poster. "Good thing you still have that unlimited credit stick."

"Haunted Hayride," the Doctor read. "Allons-y, Rose Tyler."

"Let's go."

The hayride was a nightmare. There were zombies and scarecrows in the dark, dead fields, clowns with chainsaws along the poorly-lit road. The wagon passed a scarecrow that had bloody insides spilling out. There would be an empty stretch of road, twice Rose thought that the ride was almost over, when a monster would jump out from behind a tree or start to climb from the ditch.

"You'd think that some of the things we've seen would make something like this a cakewalk," Rose laughed hesitantly. "Gas-mask zombies, the werewolf, the Gelth."

"Never underestimate the horror of a scarecrow, Rose. Real, living scarecrows that are coming to kill you truly are terrifying."

"You sound like you've met real scarecrows that tried to kill you." Rose squeezed his hand.

"Well, they didn't exactly try to _kill_ me," the Doctor scratched his neck, as was his habit when deflecting. "But yes, I did meet real living scarecrows."

The wagon pulled into the driveway at the start of the loop.

"Shall we sample the local cuisine?"

"Do you really need to ask that question?" Rose laughed, pulling the Doctor after her. There was a trailer set up as a portable chain restaurant ("Tim Horton's, Rose! Quintessentially _Canadian_ fast food. It's like a coffee shop, only quick service. Coffee, and tea, doughnuts and muffins, sandwiches and paninis! And Tim Bits! Or doughnut holes, as they're called in the rest of the world.")

"It's only, what, eight degrees out? And people are drinking iced coffees as if it were summer!" Rose said incredulously.

"Yes, well, Canadians are… strange." The Doctor said quietly, smiling politely as someone held the door open for them as they entered the small restaurant. Rose looked around the coffee shop as the Doctor ordered – "Two teas, and a ten-pack Tim Bit. Err, two pumpkin spice, two raspberry, two lemon, two chocolate glaze, and an apple fritter and honey dip." – settling into a booth by the window, looking out at the people enjoying the cold fall afternoon.

The Doctor brought their order to the table, but suggested that they take it outside. "It's a bit warm in here, especially when we've got hot drinks."

"It is pretty crowded," Rose said in agreement. They found a park bench down the road, near the hay rides, and they spent the rest of the afternoon wandering about the town drinking tea and trying doughnut holes.


	28. Forever, Rose Tyler (Eleven)

Notes: This was supposed to be a small ficlet. It's now almost 2000 words, is most definitely not fluff, and has some angst sprinkled in. It also fills three bingo squares for mentions of a coffee shop, pie, and cider.

His hearts hammer in his chest as he greedily drinks in the sight of _her_. He'd lost track of how many years it had been since he had last seen her; this regeneration was good at forgetting. He tells himself that he should go back and lock himself in the TARDIS, dematerialise and go somewhere far, far away. She's more beautiful than he remembers, and it takes everything in him to stay where he is. He closes his eyes, but blocking her from view only heightens the rest of his senses. He is acutely aware of her movement – she's sitting down – why is she sitting? She should be looking for the TARDIS or resetting her Dimension Cannon or – the Doctor is suddenly aware that he is running. She's crying. The Doctor never could bear to see Rose Tyler cry.

He sits down on the wet pavement beside her, wanting to take her in his arms, wanting to kiss her tears away, wanting to softly stroke her face, but he resists that urge. She doesn't know him – she _can't_ know him, not with this face – and instead offers a small smile, hopeful and yet sad. "Hello," he says softly. His hands long to caress her face, to comfort her, and so he awkwardly claps them together before changing his mind and balling them up inside his jacket pockets.

Rose swipes at her face, her hands wet but the tearstains are still clearly visible. "M alright. Just havin' a bad day." Her voice breaks.

His hands have left his pockets with a handkerchief before he has time to think. Gently, he wipes the water from her face, then presses the handkerchief into her hands.

"Thanks," she mutters, pulling at it awkwardly. They sit in silence for a moment, Rose side-eyeing him. "You seem remarkably calm, running into a crazy woman crying her eyes out on the pavement."

"You're not crazy," the Doctor exclaims. The very idea of Rose Tyler being insane was so far from reality that he had to smile. "You are brilliant." _Brilliant_. He hadn't said that work since he'd regenerated.

"You've only just met me. All you know, I could be- I could," she breathes in sharply, pressing his handkerchief to her eyes.

He takes her hand in his. "Tell me what's wrong," he says softly, his hearts full of love for this woman that he hasn't seen in years, decades even.

Rose looks at him for a long moment, clearly trying to decide whether to trust him. He thinks of every moment they spent together, subtly projecting his thoughts to her mind.

"I had this friend," she began. _Rose Tyler, you were never just a friend to me_. "We met, I don't know, five years ago now. Anyway, he saved my life. That's how we met, if you can believe it. So we go off, round the u-, round the world and we got separated. We were able to… to get in touch once, but I'm trying to find him again. And, maybe, he's looking for me."

The Doctor swallows, trying to rein in his emotions. Of course he had looked for her. He'd looked across the entire universe just to find one tiny crack. He remembered scouring space through every age, searching for any way to bring her back. He'd found nothing. But Rose had found and created her dimension cannon, and brought herself back to him. Rose. She was shaking.

"Cold?" He asks lightly, desperately trying to keep the more-than-friendly concern from his voice.

"May- maybe a little," Rose clears her throat, pulling the zipper up all the way on her jacket.

People are passing them on both sides and the Doctor stands, pulling Rose up with him from the pavement. "How about a cuppa? There ought to be someplace around here that makes a somewhat decent cup of tea – this is a human colony world, after all." He grins, then remembers that Rose doesn't know who he is. She more than likely would rather be on her way, go back to Pete's World and prep for another jump. "Unless, of course, you don't want to! We are perfect strangers after all – " (what a lie that was) " – and, and," he was backing himself into a corner.

He shouldn't have been surprised when she agreed. Rose had always been adventurous. Rose _was_ adventurous, he reprimanded himself for thinking of her in the past. As he reminded himself every day, she was _alive_ and living her life with her own Doctor and their own TARDIS in their own universe. But that was the past. And it was the future. Right now, Rose was with him.

The little shop that they stop in serves miniature pie slices. There are the standard Earth varieties of pumpkin, apple, and banana cream, as well as pies made from the indigenous berries and fruits. The Doctor automatically takes a slice of banana pie for himself and it isn't until they've been seated that he realizes that Rose is staring at it. He must have reminded her of his previous selves. Bananas really were good.

"Are you alright?" The Doctor asks. Rose doesn't answer, still staring at his pie. "Rose," he says, worriedly. She looks back at him, eyes hardening.

"I never told you my name." Her voice is calm, but he hears the slight edge. The Doctor stares at her helplessly, running his hand across his face. Slowly, he reaches inside his jacket pocket and pulls out his sonic screwdriver, pushing it across the table.

Rose picks it up, keeping her eyes fixed on him nervously.

"Different case," he says slowly. "Same software, though. Point it at the light and it'll explode. Point it at a lock, and it'll open."

A series of expressions pass over Rose's face. Recognition, suspicion, curiosity, hope.

"Doctor?"

The Doctor smiles hopefully. "Hello."

" _Doctor_." The way she says his name isn't a question. She leans toward him, hands out as if to touch his face. He takes her hand in his, pressing it to his cheek, closing his eyes and allowing himself to sigh contentedly. Rose quickly slides out of the booth and sits beside him. " _Doctor,_ " her voice breaks, thick with emotion. "My Doctor."

His hearts beat faster as she calls him hers. "Yeah?"

"Of course," Rose looks down at their hands, entwined together.

"Rose Tyler," he says and she looks back up at him, her eyes once more filled with tears.

"It's you," she says simply. He aches to take her with him into the TARDIS, to selfishly keep her for himself. Even as he thinks about it, he sees timelines snapping and fraying and blinking out of existence. He can't keep her, not even for a day.

He wants to tell her that he misses her. He wants to tell her that he loves her. But those aren't his words to say. They don't even belong to Sandshoes. They're the other Doctor's. The one who is the same as him except in one way. He puts him out of his mind.

"I tried so hard to walk by. I knew it would be too tempting to change the timelines if I saw you."

"Isn't this dangerous then?" Rose made to stand up, but the Doctor pulled her closer.

"Maybe. But what's life without a little risk, eh?" He was a reckless man, he knew. He still cared far too much, but was now willing to risk more. What was risk when you had already lost everything? And he had lost, everything and more, time and time again.

"You're different," she says, and the tantalizing question is on his lips before he has time to think. _Good different or bad different?_ But he doesn't ask.

"Not so different," he says instead.

"No," Rose agrees. He's not so different. A bit more enigmatic perhaps, but still the Doctor. Still _her_ Doctor.

"That's twice now, you know?"

"Sorry?" Rose studies his face, learning every new line, studying each new feature.

"Your Doctor," he smiles again and he looks so- so _Doctor-ish_ that Rose has to smile back.

"Aren't you?" She asks hesitantly.

"Forever," he repeats her promise that she made to him, a life time ago on a planet far, far away. "Of course I am. And I always will be."

"I don't find you, do I?" So many times she's come so close. And now she's found him but it's too late.

"Course you do. You're brilliant, remember?" The Doctor brushes her hair back and Rose leans into his touch. She's long since dead, then. She bitterly thinks of the irony – she just watched the Doctor – her Doctor – be carried off by UNIT and then she meets the Doctor after he saw her die.

"But you didn't regenerate! In the street, they took your body away! You were dead!" Rose remembers suddenly, looking at this Doctor with concern.

"It works out, in the end," he says quietly. "Trust me?"

Rose searches his face, one that she doesn't know very well, and nods. "Always."

The desire to tell her that he loves her burns. The words have lodged themselves in the back of his throat and he swallows roughly to no avail. "Rose," her name escapes. He can't tell her. _I don't get to say those words to you. They're not mine to say, not with these lips and not when I have two hearts._ Two hearts that have been mended so many times only to break again.

The Dimension Cannon beeps. Finished recharging, then. Rose looks at it as though it's a foreign object to her. "You need to go," he touches the cannon briefly, his fingers lingering where they touch her.

"Doctor," she starts, words not enough for what she needs. She swallows hard. "The last time I saw you, I told you that I loved you."

"I know," he says simply. He knows that she loves him, he knows that she told him. He knows that she's asking him not to let her disappear again, at least not without knowing one way or the other. "Oh, Rose Tyler, of course I love you." Any semblance of an emotional barrier shatters. "Rose, I have lived so long without you and I shouldn't have told you because _he_ needed to be the one to tell you but I miss you So. Much. And it is taking every ounce of willpower to keep reminding myself that I need to let you go so that Time doesn't start breaking down around us. But first, I am _going_ to kiss you, because I waited too long and I will never get this opportunity again." She would, of course, kiss the _other_ other him at Bad Wolf Bay.

She tastes of fruit and tea and _Rose_ , it's like the scent that lingers after they used to hug, only better. He kisses her slowly, languidly taking his time. The Dimension Cannon beeps again.

"I love you," he says, making sure that it did not sound like a goodbye. He did not wait to use them as a farewell. He had waited to make it special, and then he had lost the opportunity. He didn't care that they weren't his words to say to her, only that he was the Doctor and he was still utterly in love with Rose Tyler.

"My Doctor," she says once more.

He smiles, wanting both for her last view of him to be happy and for his last view of her to be clear. "Forever, Rose Tyler."

She fades as she jumps back to Pete's World. His hands are left holding air, staring at empty space. He stands there silently, a warm smile on his face, for so long that even his Time senses can't measure accurately. Only then does he head back for the TARDIS, thinking of his pink and yellow human.


	29. Return to Woman Wept (Twelve)

doctorroseprompts 31 Days of Ficmas – Skating, Hot Chocolate, TwelvexRose month

"Do you remember the first time I took you here?"

Rose looked around the white landscape, its icy features as clear and breath-taking as the first time that she had seen them. "Course I do," she threaded her fingers through those of her husband. "It was just after we'd met Jack for the first time. You were tryin' to show off."

"Show off? Me? Rose Tyler, you are mistaken." The Doctor smirked, pulling her closer. Rose merely laughed, leaning in to his touch.

"If you say so," Rose replied lightly, also smirking. "What's in your pocket?" She asked, running her fingers along the lining of the trans-dimensional pocket.

"Maybe I'm just happy to see you, Rose," the Doctor deadpanned.

"You're always happy to see me. Besides, 'm talking about your coat pocket." Rose smacked his arm lightly. She hung on to his arm, her eyes cajoling him to give in. The Doctor handed her of ice skates and Rose's honey eyes lit up.

"Boots off, Rose Tyler. Or did you forget how we got around on this planet the last time?" The Doctor lifted his trousers to reveal that he was already wearing his own pair of black ice skates. Rose was quick to shuck her boots. The moment her skates were laced, the Doctor was pulling her to her feet. He skated backwards, their hands interlocked, slowly bring Rose closer to him.

"I told you that you liked to show off," Rose's tongue was teasing him again, poking out between her teeth. He wondered, not for the first time, if it was something she did consciously; after so long, he had an inkling that she knew it drove him mad.

They skated down the planet's icy surface, the towering frozen waves looming above them. It could have been a terrifying sight, with the great ice mountains everywhere and cold icy ground, but Rose loved it. "'S gorgeous," she smiled softly, holding on to her husband's arm.

"A beautiful planet for my beautiful wife," the Doctor said declared quietly.

"Aren't you the proper romantic?" Rose replied teasingly.

"Well, if you want romance, my Rose, then romance you shall have." The Doctor snapped his fingers – more for the effect it gave than any practical reason – and called the TARDIS to them. He stepped inside for a moment, already communicating his plan to the ship who instantly responded with enthusiasm. She did, she reminded him smugly, love Rose almost as much as he did. "Hot chocolate with a dash of Irish Cream topped with the finest whipped cream available in the TARDIS."

Rose accepted her mug gratefully. "I suppose it is a bit cold." She sipped at the drink, revelling in the warmth that washed over her, feeling her upper lip become covered with whipped cream and couldn't help but grin. "I should have known that you would try to use whipped cream," she was cut off by the Doctor.

"It's only trying if I'm unsuccessful." With that he kissed her tenderly. Rose responded in kind, moving her hand from his arm to caress his face.

"I love you," Rose cuddled closer to the Doctor, sipping at her hot chocolate and looking out at the frozen ocean.


	30. Forever(Can Only Be In His Memories)(12)

Claiming Doctor/Rose for timepetalsprompts Doctor Who bingo. This also definitely fills Twelfth Doctor Month over doctorroseprompts

He closes his eyes and leans against the TARDIS, listening to the sound of the dimension cannon, _her_ project that she started, so that she could get back to him. Him, not this him, of course, but a younger him. When his hair stood in spikes (he thinks his hair is much nicer now, soft and fluffy) and he dressed in pinstripes and chucks. He knows that she won't find him, not here, lurking in the shadows

She's as beautiful as he remembers, from all those billions of years ago. He laughs humourlessly – she'd thought him old when they'd first met. And here he is, two regenerations and four and a half billion years later, and she still makes his hearts beat wildly in his chest. He almost calls out to her, but stops himself. The timelines, if he even says hello the selfish Time Lord knows that he'll never willingly say goodbye. So he tries to content himself with watching her, and he can almost trick himself into thinking its enough when she looks up and sees the TARDIS.

She looks from the old blue box to the old gray man beside it and he can see her breath hitch. He knows she's wondering if he's himself or if he's a random stranger, and happy though he may be to see her, the Doctor gives no indication that he recognizes her. She walks toward him, despite his façade of imperviousness. It takes everything in him not to run to her. She runs to him.

"Doctor," when she says his name its like cold water splashed onto his face. This is real, and Rose Tyler is standing in front of him. His features soften slightly, but to the Doctor it feels as though they simply melt away. Rose Tyler is standing in front of him and she's hugging him and her head still fits perfectly against his shoulder and he is overwhelmed by a long-buried desire to kiss her. But he can't. He was _mustn't_ , he must maintain the timeline. But the rippling timelines are difficult to focus on when you've just been reunited with her, with the love of your lives.

"Rose Tyler," her name rolls off his tongue so easily, as if it had only been a few minutes since he had last said it and not a few millennia.

"Lo," she reaches up and strokes his face with her thumb. "You've regenerated."

"Twice," he admits, cupping her his hand against her face. He breathes in the scent of her – of tea and time and strawberry – and vows to commit every detail to memory. He had twenty-seven minutes thirty-two seconds to spend with her before she needed to return to Pete's World. If she would allow him. "You can't stay," he says finally, not looking her in the eye.

"But I've found you." Rose covers his hand with hers.

"The timelines are out of sync, is all." As much as he wants her to stay, she needs to go back to the him in pinstripes and sand-shoes. "You find me, the proper me." The words are difficult to force from his throat. He is still the Doctor.

Rose glances at the cannon. "I still have twenty-six minutes until I…"

"Until you _need_ to make the jump back," the Doctor finishes for her. Rose nods. He takes her by the hand and opens the door to the TARDIS. "But, like you said, there are twenty-six minutes. Twenty-six minutes and twelve seconds, to be precise."

"A lot can happen in twenty-six minutes," Rose says hesitantly.

The look that she gives him is all the inspiration he needs. "Yes," he agrees. "A lot _can_ happen in twenty-six minutes." He carries Rose, bridal style, into the console room.

"You've redecorated," she notes, one arm wrapped behind his back, the other reaching towards the Time Rotor. He waits for her to say something else, to continue. "It suits you," Rose brings her hand back to run down his shirt.

The Doctor knows what she's asking without words because he's asking himself the same question. "Your wish, is my command," he kisses her other hand, which moves to meet her right hand hovering over the topmost button of his Oxford. She undoes it. Then unbuttons the next. And the third. Until his shirt is hanging open, his chest bare. Rose gently lays her hands over his hearts and the Doctor feels the hairs on his skin rise in anticipation. Her hazel eyes, pupils dilated, are quite probably the most beautiful sight he's ever seen. There is a chair directly behind them and the Doctor picks Rose up, backing into it.

"Doctor," her voice is breathy, her eyes searching his, "are you certain?"

Of course he's certain. He will always miss her, but he would always regret not giving her anything that she desired. He had wanted her since Cardiff in 1869. He had _loved_ her since before that. And she wanted him.

" _Yes,_ " he says throatily, his hand tracing her features. "Are you?"

"I love you," she says simply. "As long as you are the Doctor, I will always love you."

They explore the other's body, the Doctor quick to shrug out of the Oxford, Rose's leather jacket and tank top discarded on the grating. He hesitates only briefly before establishing a mental link between them. Rose's mental signature is a swirl of gold in his mind. _Hello_ , he says tentatively.

 _Doctor_ , Rose's mental voice is a joy that he'd never thought he would experience again. All her emotional barriers are down, her soul bared.

 _You should raise some mental shields,_ he starts but Rose silences him with a kiss. The sensation of being shut up by a physical stimulus in a mental state is an extraordinary one. Rose is aware of a _something_ approaching. _Those would be my Time senses, love,_ he tries the endearment and finds that he loves it.

 _Is this what it's like for you all the time?_ How like Rose to be concerned for him.

 _Yes,_ he replies simply. He finds himself enveloped by a golden warmth. It's Rose. It's love. It's her love for him, projected into his every atom of being. He relishes the sensation. The chair is not large enough to accommodate the both of them and so they switch places, the Doctor pulling Rose onto his lap. They kiss languidly, as if they had all the time in the world available to them, both aware of the cruel reality that time was slipping away. How ironic that time still passed in a time machine. But the Cannon was connected to Rose, which meant that it counted her personal timeline, and fourteen of their precious twenty-six minutes had elapsed.

Slowly, he brings her fingers back up to his mouth. If this is the last he'll see of Rose Marion Tyler, he wants a memory that he will treasure forever. She had promised him forever and she had given him the memories that he would carry until he died. Forever, for this him, for the Time Lord Doctor, could only ever be memories.


	31. Nothing(That Can't Wait for Morning)(12)

doctorroseprompts 31 Days of Ficmas – Ginger, Candy Canes, Holiday baking; Twelfth Doctor month. Human AU.

"Really, Rose?"

Rose Tyler-Smith looked up from her sugar biscuit dough, which was just about ready to be to cut into, and set her rolling pin aside. "It's almost Christmas," she said happily, puckering her lips for a kiss to which her husband happily obliged.

"The semester's not finished yet," Iain groused, his pout returning as his wife drew back.

"No, but it's not as if I have a time machine where you can mark your papers and be done with it in no time at all," Rose called over her shoulder, digging in the drawer for the festive biscuit cutters. "Besides, thought it might inspire you to finish sooner!"

She was right about that. The quicker that he finished marking, the sooner he could post marks and be done for the semester, able to join his wife in the festivities. He eyed a box of candy canes distastefully. They sat in their cardboard box, waiting to be opened and dipped into hot chocolate. Candy canes.

"I can see I was wrong about inspiring you to finish," Rose's voice brought him out of his reverie. "Tell you what though, go up to the office and get some work done and I might have a surprise for you." Iain looked up at his wife, brought back to reality.

He shook his head, trying to clear it. "Guess I'm rubbish company at the moment." Iain gathered the exams together, giving Rose an apologetic half-smile as he left the kitchen.

Twenty-five minutes and one paper later, Iain heard a faint beeping from the kitchen. The first batch of Rose's cookies were finished, then, or nearly. He flipped the page, trying to stay focussed on marking. Iain thought of the holidays, just around the corner. Long, warm evenings spent in front of the fireplace, Rose curled up beside him, a plate of cinnamon gingerbread cookies on the table (he was allergic to ginger), an animated Christmas special playing in the background on the telly. He re-read the sentence.

"You're going to ruin your eyes if you go on squinting at the page." The lamp clicked on, flooding the office in a warm light. A soft hand took his, gently forcing him to drop his pen.

"Rose, I," but he was cut off by a finger held firmly against his lips.

"It's well past midnight, Iain," Rose whispered softly, "come to bed."

Iain looked from his wife to the stack of papers. There was nothing that couldn't wait until morning. He allowed her to gently pull him to bed, draping an arm over her shoulders as she cuddled closer to him. He looked down at Rose, already asleep, her head right against his chest, and turned out the bedroom light.


	32. La Vie en Rose (Twelve)

doctorroseprompts Twelfth Doctor Month, 31 days of Ficmas – Holiday music, Cozy

timepetalsprompts DW bingo – Twelve's guitar, Piper bingo – Caring characters

The Doctor slowly became aware that he was being watched. A soft smile was quick to appear on his relaxed face as he began strumming the opening chords of _La Vie en Rose_ _._

" _Des yeux qui font baisser les miens, Un rire qui se perd sur sa bouche, Voilà le portrait sans retouche, De la femme auquel j'appartiens_ ," he sang softly. _Eyes that bring down mine, A laugh that gets lost on her mouth, Here's the portrait without change, From the woman I belong to._ Though Rose did not speak French, he knew that the TARDIS was translating his singing in her head, allowing her to hear the lilting rhymes of the Romantic language. " _Quand elle me prend dans ses bras, elle me parle tout bas. Je vois la vie en rose._ " _When she takes me in her arms, She whispers to me. I see life in pink._

As she made her way down the spiral staircase to the Doctor, he strummed an instrumental postlude, slow to release the penultimate chord, allowing each note to ring. "I see you finally found your way out of the bath," he remarked nonchalantly, returning the guitar to the nearby stand.

" _Some_ of us," Rose's soft smile became a feral smirk, though her eyes remained melancholy, "prefer to have a _relaxing_ bath after nearly being killed."

The Doctor scoffed, sinking down into the overstuffed armchair. "Yes, and others are waterlogged after sixteen minutes." Rose was quick to cross the space between where the Doctor was sitting and the bottom of the staircase, ready to join him. She nestled in, his arm draped over her shoulders, her legs tucked in to her chest. His dark jumper, full of holes with his white vest top visible, was soft against her face. The Doctor's arms were quick to encircle her more completely as Rose shifted to a more comfortable position.

"I thought that I was goin' to lose you," she finally spoke, dropping more consonants as her voice thickened. The Doctor's hold on her tightened as he brought her closer.

"And have you break that promise? You ought to know that that's never going to happen by now," the Doctor tried to lighten her mood. They had come so close to losing each other that day. Rose lifted her hand to trace the Doctor's features.

"I love you," her voice broke. More than likely, she was remembering the way that she had been torn from his side, the way that their voices had become ragged and hoarse demanding to see the other.

"Oh, Rose," he looked at her tenderly, pressing a gentle kiss against her forehead, "I know." He exhaled slowly, the release cathartic, smiling. "I love you." Each word had its own nuance, as the Doctor put all his emotion into the words. On their own, such simple words were meaningless when it came to how he felt about Rose Tyler. "Why don't we do Christmas?" Holidays came and went too quickly to celebrate on an approximate annual basis in the TARDIS, and they hadn't had a Christmas since he had regenerated.

"Yeah?" A genuine smiled finally pulled at the corners of Rose's mouth. The Doctor's own smile grew at the sight. Whatever it took to make Rose happy was worth it, countless times over.

"We'll even do it properly. A Christmas tree and crackers. Mince pie, turkey, plum puddings, roast potatoes, sausage," the Doctor continued enticingly.

"We'll have to do the shopping." The Doctor's hearts throbbed with Rose's suggestion.

"The food machine –" he was cut off almost immediately.

"Is fine for most days when we're just wanting nutrition, Doctor. You said we'd do it properly," her voice became stronger, more sure of herself.

"And stockings. Satsumas down at the bottom, new socks, chocolates, bath salts," the Doctor knew that Rose would acquiesce eventually.

She moaned appreciatively, remembering how nice her current set of bath salts (which the Doctor had picked up from a market on Sanatorium Three) felt.

"Is that a yes?" The Doctor asked hopefully, trying and miserably failing to stay nonchalant.

"Yeah," she smiled, looking up at the Doctor. "Daft alien."

The Doctor merely smirked, reaching over to pick up his guitar once more. Rose shifted out of his arms, her head still resting against him. " _When you said yesterday that it's nearly Christmas, What did I want and I thought, Just love me, love me, love me, That's what I want for Christmas_ ," he crooned, picking out the chords softly. The short ballad was perfect. All he wanted was for Rose to be happy. Having Christmas would be the perfect opportunity to show her.

At the end of the song, Rose gently placed the guitar back in the stand. "Let's find somewhere where we're not all twisted." She untangled herself from the Doctor, pulling him up with her. He allowed her to lead him from the library, up the stairs to the doorway. He had more than an inkling where she was leading them as they entered the corridor, and he immediately recognized the door that the TARDIS so kindly moved for them. His smile grew softer once more, and he touched the wall in silent thanks. The lights dimmed in response.

"I believe that it is safe to assume that we are not starting Christmas until morning," the Doctor looked at Rose, his free hand hovering over the doorknob. Rose kissed his cheek gently.

"I think 'm about ready for bed," she agreed.

The Doctor twisted the door open, leading Rose in to their bedroom. As per their routine, they were quick to strip away their clothes and change, settling in to their bed. Rose rolled over so that she was on his side of the bed, lacing her fingers with his, sighing contentedly. The Doctor pulled her close once more, relaxing to her familiar single heartbeat, until he finally fell asleep.

Rose looked at the Doctor's relaxed face, revelling in how soft it looked in sleep. The thick quilt was pulled up over their shoulders, the stars projected on the ceiling were growing darker, and Rose pressed a sleepy kiss to the Doctor's bare collarbone.


	33. Frivolous Accessories (NSFW) (Twelve)

Notes: timepetalsprompts DW bingo 11 s bow-tie, 5 s celery, 7 s umbrella, Other Doctors clothes, 4 s scarf, 1 s monocle, Doctor+Coats, 6 s fashion.  
I believe that this also fills dwsmutfest monthly prompt of Grab Ba(n)g Month, in a roundabout sort of way. I mean, a wardrobe is basically a grab bag. Especially if it s on the TARDIS. Anything could be in there.

NSFW. This might be the filthiest thing I ever wrote.

* * *

Several Gallifreyan curses spilled from the Doctor's mouth. " _Where?_ " He finally managed to ask, his eyes wildly taking in the… outfit his wife had strung together.

"Quite right," Rose pursed her lips, twirling the end of his scarf. "I _really_ should have picked that coloured monstrosity, but this coat brought back _such_ nostalgia that I couldn't _bear_ to leave it in the wardrobe."

The Doctor looked from his wife to his ship. "Most of those… _clothes_ were in the _back_ of the wardrobe," he all but growled to the TARDIS.

"She's such a _dear_ , isn't she?" Rose gushed. "Of course, once I saw the coat, the bow-tie was draped around the mannequin, and you do remember how much I _loved_ the bow-tie." She leaned dramatically on the umbrella handle.

The Doctor couldn't argue that. They had had some truly _wonderful_ times with the bow-tie. Still, the time for such frivolous accessories was behind him. He looked closer at what his wife was wearing, his frown deepening.

"My old leather jacket, my bow-tie, my scarf, my umbrella, and is that a stalk of celery in your pocket?" The Doctor raked her (his) outfit over.

"Maybe I'm just happy to see you," Rose pecked his cheek, the monocle finally slipping from her eye. The Doctor was quick to catch it before it shattered, tucking it into the jacket pocket. "Or, I was hungry and the TARDIS _strongly_ prompted that I snack on this veggie. It is quite delicious, dear." She took her hand from the pocket, taking a bite from the celery suggestively.

The Doctor stuck his hands in his pockets, taking care to showcase the red lining.

"And you missed your old braces, but I'll forgive you for that. They are mostly hidden beneath the coat _and_ the scarf," Rose continued drolly.

The Doctor lifted the coat away with his index finger, revealing the flowery blue suspenders. "I'd searched high and low for those," he admitted, voice slightly disgusted with his former self. "Was stuck with the plain red braces, when I really wanted flowery braces to match my (de)flowered wife."

Rose lightly smacked his arm. "Ever the sex fiend," she rolled her eyes. The Doctor slowly lifted the strap of the braces. "Never said I didn't like it," she frowned mischievously. Just as slowly, the Doctor lowered the braces. "But, all these ridiculous clothes are a bit heavy. I suppose that I'd best take," she began unwinding the scarf, "them, off."

With the scarf draped over her shoulders, Rose tugged lightly at the bow-tie. The knot easily gave way and Rose dropped her hands to the ruffled shirt, undoing the first few buttons. The Doctor's hands quickly took over.

"You know, it's quite sexy seeing you dressed in my clothes," he whispered in her ear, his coat dropping to the floor. "I think we'll leave you a few… items to keep you in."

"Yeah," Rose asked, her voice breathy in anticipation.

The ruffled shirt was quick to go, followed by the chequered trousers. The bow-tie, leather jacket, and the celery stayed. The Doctor looked his wife over, digging through the growing pile of clothing. He brought out the braces. "Put these on," he said, almost a command.

"Or what?" Rose took the braces, easily clipping them to her strappy knickers. She poked her husband's chest, unable to help but giggle as he dropped into the chair. The Doctor shrugged as nonchalantly as he could.

"Who knows," he couldn't help but snark. Most of his first clothing choices had been fashion disasters by most standards, but had always suited the pluckier, younger Time Lord. At the time – looking back usually brought a sinking revulsion with what his younger selves had decided to wear. As Rose started to drop the scarf, he bit his lip. "No, _no._ The scarf stays."

Rose laughed, looping the scarf over her body and under the jacket until it resembled a sort of wraparound. "Well?" She struck a pose, twirling the end.

"Better," the Doctor breathed, raspy.

Rose grinned, loosely tying the Doctor's hands together with the bow-tie. The Doctor, never one to wait for anything to happen, kissed her bare clavicle, smirking as the hairs on her skin stood. "Patience, Doctor," Rose lightly trailed her fingers down his cheek until they were resting on his lips.

"Minx," he growled.

"Trousers. Off." Rose's eyes danced ferally. The Doctor was quick to oblige. Rose pressed her lips to his, her hands now behind his back, tying the ends of the scarf together, before straddling him. "Now who's the minx," she smirked. The Doctor merely raised his eyebrows. "I think you're quite right, love. It's always been you," she simpered. "Rugged good looks and a leather jacket, that _tight_ suit with _that_ hair. Really wasn't fair at all."

The Doctor struggled to focus on what she was saying. "And what did you call that short skirt, wholly denim, with those sheer tights and scarf and three-quarters a pair of gloves?" He fired back, as ruthlessly as he was able, his voice breathy.

"I was nineteen and thought they looked cool," Rose's eyes narrowed. "You were one to talk. Bloody well oblivious to the effects of this jacket." Slowly, she ran her hands down the front.

"Not anymore," he murmured, drinking in the sight of her wearing his clothes. Tired of waiting, the Doctor kissed her, leaning forward to reach her lips. Rose's hands quickly latched back around him, shortening the distance between them.

"Patience, love."

The Doctor hissed as Rose rubbed over his erection. "Pants off," he grunted, as she continued her teasing ministrations.

Rose slowly shrugged out from the leather, now only dressed in her knickers and his braces. "I don't think so, love," she whispered, her nails digging into his shoulders through the fabric of his jacket and shirt. "Your coat first. _And_ jumper."

"Yes, love," the Doctor quickly freed his hands, stripping far more quickly than his wife, throwing away the offending clothes so that he was standing there in his socks, pants, and vest top.

"Much better," Rose sighed happily, "though I'll have to tie you up again."

The Doctor's hearts raced. "Perhaps. Though _I_ believe that the plan was to have tied _you_ up."

"Shouldn't have called me a minx, then," Rose smirked foxily, gently pushing him onto the bed. The Doctor pulled her along so that she landed on his chest. She lay there, listening to the familiar double heartbeat through the thin material of his vest top, when she felt him twitch beneath her.

"Always such a bloody tease," the Doctor muttered. Her smirk returning, Rose began to gently rock.

"It's only a tease if I don't do anything about it." She found her rhythm, lifting herself off his chest for better manoeuvrability, her nails leaving indents behind. He gasped her name as he came and Rose felt her own orgasm climax. Breathless, she collapsed on top of him. He pressed a soft kiss to her head, and held her close until they both drifted off to sleep.


	34. Barcelona (Nine)

timepetalscollective Eccleston bingo – smirking

He smirked, and Rose could not help but feel a twist in her stomach that was starting to be all too familiar. Guiltily, she reminded herself that Mickey was waiting for her to come back, that she'd just up and left him without a second look. As she looked at the Doctor, knowing that a man such as himself could never reciprocate what she felt for him, Rose thought that she could never go back to an ordinary life working in the shops, eating chips, and going out with Mickey. Rose realized that she did love Mickey, but in no greater capacity than as her oldest friend. They were mates, Rose and Mickey, but not the sort that truly fell in love with the other.

"Here we are, then," the Doctor folded his arms, smirk widening. "Barcelona."

"Yeah, and if it's anywhere but I get to choose the next destination until we actually arrive there," Rose grinned, her tongue peeking through in her excitement.

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Right. I take you among the stars to a new planet, as if it really matters which one it is so long as it's new, and you can't stop fixating on one planet."

"One planet where you promised to take me," Rose laughed, her hand poised over the door handle. "M starting to think that this ship is more in control than you are."

"That's not too far off. You don't steer the TARDIS, you reason with her." The Doctor crossed his arms.

"Yeah? So what's she have against the planet Barcelona? Or the city, for that matter." Rose couldn't help but fall into the easy banter. The Doctor rolled his eyes.

"Ready?"

Rose felt a shiver run down her back, one that wasn't entirely to do with the prospect of a new planet to explore.

"Yeah." She took the Doctor's proffered hand as he opened the door to the new world.


	35. Doomsday Fix-it (Eleven)

timepetalscollective Anon prompt for future!Doctor saving Rose from the Void in place of parallel Pete Tyler.

Doctor Who bingo – Matt Smith falling over, TARDIS saves the day

Notes: I was going to use Twelve, but when I started actually writing this, Eleven quickly asserted himself as the dominant personality.

The Doctor glared at the offending piece of alien technology, the bright yellow button continuing to mock him as it had for over millennia.

"No," he snapped at it, abruptly pulling up the grating so that he could file it away once more. As ever, he was torn over actually letting it go and kicked the grating in frustration. He grabbed his foot, cursing as the pain now overwhelmed him. She was gone, no matter how much the TARDIS (and himself, if he would ever be honest) missed her. The hopper rematerialized beside him. "Even if I wanted to, _which I don't_ by the way, the walls are still up. It's _impossible_."

The TARDIS laughed at him. The walls between dimensions weren't as solid as he liked to pretend. Though he liked to forget it, the Time Lords _were_ coming back at some point – a time lock wouldn't last forever. Travel between realities would be more than simple, then.

Speaking of Impossible Things, where was the Impossible Girl? She'd presumably found a bedroom somewhere at some point since their return to the TARDIS… Impossible things happened, though. Like the parallel Pete Tyler somehow knowing exactly when to jump back to this universe to save her. There was no reason for him to have suspected that Rose was in danger. There had been no reason at all for him to appear in the first place.

The Doctor needed the hopper, a perception filter, and a Vortex manipulator. Before he could open the next trunk, however, all three items materialized beside him. "You miss her too, eh Old Girl," he smiled sadly. A single pink light flashed. The Doctor pulled out the keyboard, rapidly calling up all images available of Peter Alan Tyler, compositing them into a single image which he then deposited into the perception filter. The Doctor check the co-ordinates in the Vortex manipulator, not wanting the TARDIS too close to her younger self where _his_ younger self would be able to sense her. Swallowing hard, the Doctor turned the perception filter on and placed the dimension hopper around his neck. The man in the TARDIS was finally ginger. He activated the Vortex manipulator-

-the Void was open behind him and Rose slammed into his arms. Just in time. He touched the Vortex manipulator and was back in the TARDIS. And he wasn't alone.

Rose was staring at him, mouth agape. "Take me back," she half-whispered, half-shouted. "Take me _back_."

He held her tighter. Rose was here, in his arms, in the TARDIS. And she was absolutely gutted. The perception filter. He removed it quickly, and he was the Doctor once more. Rose pulled away from his, scrambling away, her expression fearful and angry and absolutely heartbroken. The Doctor felt his own broken hearts shatter as she backed away.

"Rose," he said brokenly. Her name was foreign to this tongue and he said it again, rolling it over. "Rose Tyler."

Rose eyed him, breath hitching. "Where am I? The Doctor said that the Void's nothing. This isn't nothing, so I'm not in the Void. But this isn't Torchwood either and that's where I, where I just was."

"Oh, you're not saying that you don't recognize the TARDIS. She might be a different colour now, but that's still quite rude," the Doctor frowned, some part of his brain wondering why he was worried about Rose's reaction towards the TARDIS when he ought to be telling her who _he_ was.

Hesitantly, after extending his arm several times, the Doctor finally reached out, cupping Rose's face. It only lasted a moment. He quickly withdrew, awkwardly scratching his cheek. "Yes, right. It would seem that introductions are in order after all. Rose, it's," he stopped. He'd been about to say 'it's me', but that would mean nothing. Wouldn't it? He remembered something. "The last time that I saw you, after everything, was the first time that you'd remember seeing me. You could say I was a different man then." Oh. That was clever. But was it too vague? How could it be vague? He'd literally just referenced regeneration. He watched her closely as she searched his eyes, hoping against hope that she'd find whatever it was she was looking for.

"It's you," Rose breathed, suddenly enveloping him in an embrace, to which he eagerly responded.

"Hello," he couldn't help but use the same words as the last time she'd first seen him after regeneration. He held her tightly, lifting her from the floor in his exuberance.

"Is this what you do when I'm sleeping?" A voice interrupted their reunion. "Doctor, I still don't have a bedroom, but you just pick up more people when I'm not around?"

"Clara!" The Doctor brought Rose down, still tightly holding her hand. "Clara, this is _Rose_. She most certainly is not 'more people'. Rose, this is my companion, Clara Oswin Oswald," he tried to gesture grandly, but with only one arm free it came off rather mediocre.

Looking at the face of her friend, Clara sighed and entered the room. "Just Clara's fine, thanks. And I'd like a proper introduction to this frankly _gorgeous_ woman who apparently you know."

"My name's Rose, Rose Tyler," Rose smiled hesitantly.

"I rescued her. Long story, don't ask questions Clara, she'll be staying with me until further notice. If, of course, that's what she wants," he finished rather uncertainly, in sharp contrast to the swaggering bravado tone with which he started.

"She's pretty," Clara grinned.

"She's beautiful," the Doctor gently corrected her.

" _She's_ right here," Rose laughed, rolling her eyes at their eccentricity.

"Oh! Stupid, _stupid_ Doctor," he muttered, bounding back up to the TARDIS console, pulling Rose after him. He flipped the dematerialization lever, and the TARDIS slowly phased into the Vortex.

"Not that I'm complaining that you saved me, but won't there be a paradox? M starting to get the feeling that I was supposed to have died back there." Rose said softly.

"Died?" The Doctor turned to face her. " _Died?_ Rose Tyler, how could you ever think that you were meant to die at Canary Wharf?"

Rose pulled at her hair. "Died, spend forever in the Void, semantics really. I wasn't meant to walk away from Canary Wharf. You wouldn't have been there otherwise. And I don't know how long it's been for you, but if I died there then I _need_ to die there. You once told me that an ordinary man who wasn't there before was the most dangerous thing in existence. So what's that make me, then?"

"Home," the Doctor suddenly wrapped her in a tight embrace, his voice muffled by her hair. "And you're going to have to leave again, but not for a long, _long_ time." Hesitantly, almost uncertain of himself, he pressed a kiss to her forehead. "The walls of reality are splintered, but they're closed enough that travel between them is impossible. Other Pete could never have known that you needed rescuing at that moment. Oh," he groaned as he realized that the younger Doctor needed to see Rose at Dårlig Ulv-Stranden. "Rose, connect with the TARDIS telepathic fields and think about your mother. We need to send her a message."

"Doctor what's going on?" Clara was sitting quietly on the chair, watching as the Doctor hurried around the console.

"Saving history, Clara. Making sure that it happens the way it was meant to," the Doctor threw a lever. "Dårlig Ulv-Stranden, here we come! Now, Rose, you need to ask him to come through properly. Remember that." He sonicked the holo-projector and Rose gasped as her mother materialized in the TARDIS.

"Rose!" Jackie cried, quickly closing the space between her and her daughter. "Where are you?"

"M in the TARDIS. The Doctor saved me, Mum." Rose looked into her mother's eyes and Jackie knew that something wasn't right.

"Jackie Tyler," the Doctor rubbed his hands together. "Hello. As you can probably see, I've got a new face. But everything's okay, I'm from the future! In about," he consulted his watch, "four minutes, I'm going to materialize as another hologram about two feet that way," he pointed. "I need you lot to act as if Rose is trapped here in this universe with you. Not to worry, you'll see Rose again after this is all over, but, and this is important, that man needs to believe that Rose Tyler is in Pete's World."

Jackie tried to slap him, watching in horror as her hand passed right through his face.

"Holograms, Jackie." The Doctor reminded her, walking back towards Rose. Jackie watched as he passed through a rock, then tripped over nothing.

"Four months," she said furiously. "Four bloody months I've been in this universe with no knowledge if my daughter was dead or alive."

"The Doctor's coming, Mum. He needs to truly believe that I'm in your universe."

"Why?" Jackie asked, turning on the Doctor.

"Because I've seen it happen, Jackie. I had to say goodbye to Rose on this beach all those hundreds of years ago and as much as it's going to hurt, it's already happened and it must happen. We need to maintain the timeline." The Doctor's hologram disappeared and a new one took it's place.

" **Where are you?"** Rose asked, though she already suspected the answer. He was in the same universe as she, in the same TARDIS, at the same moment in time but now at different points in their timelines.

" **Inside the TARDIS. There's one tiny little gap in the Universe left, just about to close, and it takes a lot of power to send this projection. I'm in orbit around a super nova. I'm burning up a sun just to say goodbye."**

" **You look like a ghost."** Rose couldn't stop her voice from cracking, looking at the face she knew so well of the man she loved.

" **Hold on."** The image solidified as the Doctor sonicked something beyond her viewpoint.

" **Can I,"** Rose started. He looked so real that she started to wonder if there wasn't some way of connecting with him. They were in the same TARDIS, after all.

" **I'm still just an image. No touch."** His voice was pained.

" **Can't you come through properly?"** She remembered the other Doctor's one instruction to her, already knowing that he wouldn't be able to.

" **The whole thing would fracture. Two universes would collapse."**

" **So?"** The word felt so selfish, so wrong to say. And yet she had said the first time she'd been on this beach. But this time, her only time experiencing this, she needed to make this exactly how the other Doctor remembered.

" **Where are we? Where did the gap come out?"** The Doctor looked around the beach.

" **We're in Norway."** Rose dreaded the words.

" **Norway. Right."** He nodded, as if they were simply having a normal conversation.

" **About fifty miles out of Burgen. It's called 'D** **a** **rlig Ulv Stranden'."**

" **Dalek?"** The Doctor's tone changed, suddenly underlined with fear.

" **D** **a** **rlig. It's Norwegian for bad. This translates as Bad Wolf Bay. How long have we got?"** Oh, the irony hadn't missed her when the older Doctor had told her the translation. She'd supposed that Bad Wolf truly had seen everything.

" **About two minutes."**

" **I can't think of what to say!"** What did you say? When you were a hologram on a beach, speaking to a hologram of the man you loved, who believed you were trapped in a parallel world?

" **You've still got Mister Mickey, then?"** Mickey. Rose chanced a look back at her parents, seeing Mickey hanging back for the first time.

" **There's five of us now. Rose, Pete, Mickey and the baby."** Jackie Tyler called. Rose turned to look at her mother, her eyes wide. _Mum?_ She mouthed. Her mother smiled sadly.

" **You're not?"** The Doctor asked, incredulous.

" **No. It's mum. She's three months gone. More Tylers on the way."** Rose could hardly believe it herself.

" **And what about you? Are you…"** He left the sentence unfinished.

" **Yeah, I'm back working in the shop."** Rose improvised.

" **Oh, good for you."** The Doctor looked at her, his face pained.

" **Shut up. No, I'm not. There's still a Torchwood on this planet. It's open for business. I think I know a thing or two about aliens."** This world's Torchwood was where Pete Tyler worked, she didn't think it that far a stretch that he'd get her a job.

" **Rose Tyler, Defender of the Earth. You're dead, officially, back home. So many people died that day and you've gone missing. You're on a list of the dead. Here you are, living a life day after day. The one adventure I can never have."**

" **Am I ever going to see you again?"** She knew the answer. She was already with the Doctor, in the TARDIS.

The younger Doctor's face flashed with sorrow. **"You can't."**

" **What're you going to do?"** How long between this and him saving her from the Void?

" **Oh, I've got the TARDIS. Same old life, last of the Time Lords."** He put on a bravado, airs of nonchalance, but Rose could see that he was close to breaking down.

" **On your own?"** Rose remembered the last time she'd heard him say those words. They'd been followed by him asking if she wasn't coming along. **"I, I love you."** This would be the last time she would see this face that she knew so well. The older Doctor had all but confirmed that.

" **Quite right, too."** The younger Doctor smiled, his face lined with sorrow. **"And I suppose, if it's one last chance to say it, Rose Tyler,"** he disappeared before her eyes. Almost immediately, she felt a hand slip into her own. Looking up, into green eyes that were so new and so old, Rose swallowed.

"Doctor," she was at a loss for words.

"You were wonderful," he told her, pressing another kiss to her forehead. "Now, we should also be going. The TARDIS is going to need to refuel after this. Younger me wasn't being flippant about burning up a sun for the projection."

"Mum." Rose tried to take her mother's hand, knowing that it wouldn't hold.

"Don't forget to go home once in a while, eh?" Jackie forced a smile. "You might be a Defender of the Earth or whatever, and officially dead, but don't forget where you came from."

"Course I won't," Rose promised. "Pretty sure that Earth's the Doctor's favourite planet, anyway."

Jackie laughed at that. "I love you, sweetheart."

"I love you, too, Mum," Rose whispered. The hologram flickered, then died away. Rose was suddenly aware of her surroundings. Turning, she looked into the green eyes of the older Doctor.

"You were perfect," he said quietly. He fingered his bow-tie anxiously.

"Is anyone going to tell me what just happened?" Clara jumped off the chair. "Right now, all I'm getting is you used to be a bit of a looker, and you've lied to yourself about where this woman is."

"That's the gist of it, yeah. Well, you missed the bit where I'm in love with her, but I'll forgive you that since I never actually managed to say it." The Doctor wet his lips.

" _Still_ never managed to actually say it," Clara keenly observed.

 _Oh_. His companion was quite correct.

"Doctor, I," Rose turned away. "M not feeling well, think I'm going to lie down a while."

"Oh, er," the Doctor didn't know how to tell her. "Your room will be the first door on the right, the TARDIS just moved it for you, didn't you dear?" The console lit up, the ship happy that Rose was back. "Erm, there's a perfectly reasonable explanation why your room isn't how you left."

Rose was barely listening to the new Doctor's rambling, walking down the corridor and opening the door.

The room was, at first glance, exactly how she'd left it that morning. A pink hoodie lazily thrown over the chair, a book on the nightstand, the same warm purple comforter over the bed. But there was a pair of spectacles on the book, bow-ties hanging on the vanity, and a tweed suit in a crumpled heap on the floor. Clearly, it was someone else's bedroom now.

She turned to see the Doctor leaning against the doorframe. "Bit of a mess, I'm afraid. I hadn't been planning on rescuing you today." He entered the room, crossing over to hastily gather the items.

"No, they, they can stay." Rose heard herself say. She turned to face him once more. "How was that sentence going to end?"

He froze. "I can't tell you that. Not my words to say." Technically true, but the other _other_ him had already told her the words, from his perspective. "Do you want to skip ahead, then?"

"What do you mean?"

"You're going to go back to Pete's World, Rose. It could be today, if you want."

"How many times have I got to say that 'm not leaving you?" Rose's voice was pained.

"You will, though. This me, anyway." She'd think he was referring to his face. No, she'd go with his Metacrisis. It would _always_ be better that way. "But," he said, clapping his hands together, "we have time. It took you years in the linear timeline of this universe to come back. You're still from 2006. One could argue that you're too young to go back into the timeline properly. So, you could, I don't know, stay?" His hand extended towards her.

"Yeah?" She reached for him, taking his hand in hers. Bigger than his immediate predecessor's, it still managed to fit perfectly with hers.


	36. Untitled post-regeneration ficlet (Nine)

timepetalscollective

Eccleston bingo – big grin, fantastic, leather jacket

Rose sat in a silent vigil next to his side, willing this man with an unfamiliar face to awaken. An hour ago, Jackie had brought her a cup of tea, begging her to get some rest, but Rose didn't want to leave the Doctor alone. Well, that wasn't entirely the truth, but it was as close to it as she was willing to admit to her mother.

She didn't want to leave the Doctor to find that he'd changed more than his appearance and had left her behind. She had, of course, directly gone against his wishes in going after him in the TARDIS, though how she'd managed to get there was a bit of mystery to her. But even though she had gone against him, she hoped that she would still be welcome on the TARDIS.

Rose couldn't help but remember how large he'd grin when he was excited or how he took every opportunity to give her a hug. How he called everything and anything that he was enthusiastic about 'fantastic'. (How he'd called her 'absolutely fantastic' just before he'd changed.) Huddled in a chair beside him, his leather jacket draped over her shoulder – the smell of which was indistinguishable to the man sleeping beside her – Rose waited for this new man to awaken. Rose waited – for the Doctor.


	37. Journey's End postlude

He knew. Of course he knew. They had the same brain patterns, after all. He was the effect of an instantaneous biological metacrisis. So how could he _not_ know the other Doctor's plan?

Flipping a switch on the console (a very handy switch that he hadn't used in a very long time, had nearly forgotten about in fact, a switch that stopped the passage of personal timelines inside the TARDIS), the metacrisis knew that he wouldn't have long before the Time Lord him noticed the sidelined timeline. But he wasn't about to be dropped off in a parallel world forever without first taking some of his belongings. A sonic screwdriver, of course. Tearing open the grating, he found the box of various discarded sonics. Most of them were broken or in dire need of upgrading. The Doctor stared in awe as a new screwdriver materialized in his hand.

"Oh, you are beautiful. Thanks, old girl," he muttered, stroking the bottom of the console. He quickly replaced the old screwdrivers under the grating. Screwdriver – check. Psychic paper was easy enough to find and… he didn't really _need_ any other, bulkier, gadgets. A small box materialized on the jumpseat. A gift, from the TARDIS. He tucked in safely into his jacket pocket.

The time lock broke. The Time Lord Doctor gave the metacrisis a strange look as he turned the viewer to face him. "Darlig Ulv Stranden. There it is."

The TARDIS materialized on the Norwegian beach in a parallel universe. He was first out of the TARDIS, ignoring Jackie's rambling until she mentioned her baby.

"Oh, that's brilliant. What'd you call him?"

"Doctor." He knew that Jackie had warmed up to him since his regeneration but this, this was…

"Really?"

"No, you plum. He's called Tony." Ah, he ought to have known. Then again, he was born today. He turned as Rose started to realize what the Time Lord's plan was.

Rose was looking at the other him. "But he's not you."

He kept his face stoic as his heart shattered.

"He needs you. That's very me," the Time Lord said. That Doctor could never know how it felt to only have a single heart, beating wildly in his chest, already broken.

"But it's better than that, though. Don't you see what he's trying to give you?" Donna. Brilliant Donna. Of course, he knew what was happening to her too. He kept his expression carefully neutral. Finally, _finally_ , Rose turned to look at him.

"I look like him, and I think like him. Same memories, same everything. Except, I've only got one heart." And it was beating faster and harder than he could ever remember.

"Which means?"

"I'm part human. Specifically the aging part. I'll grow old and never regenerate. I've only got one life, Rose Tyler." And that terrified him. Not the growing old part. He'd been old before, kept his first face a great deal longer than most Time Lords. But to never regenerate, to have his body die and know that he wouldn't come back… This was it. "I could spend it with you. If you want." His heartbeat raced. One life, one heart that was already broken, on the brink of shattering.

"You'll grow old at the same time as me."

"Together." Yes. He could spend the rest of his life with her.

He watched as she reached out, touching his chest to feel his single heartbeat.

And then the TARDIS was making noise and the other Doctor said that they had to go. Rose whipped around and started to follow him.

"But, it's still not right. Because, The Doctor's still you."

"And I'm him."

"All right, both of you answer me this. When I last stood on this beach, on the worst day of my life, what was the last thing you said to me? Go on, say it?"

They stood on either side of her, one Doctor with a TARDIS, the other missing a heart.

"I said Rose Tyler." The Doctor looked at briefly at the Time Lord, knowing that he was about to leave them in this universe.

"Yeah and, how was that sentence gonna end?" Rose asked, and the Doctor knew that it was now or never. He was either going to spend forever with Rose Tyler or she was going to demand to go with the other Doctor to their original universe.

"Does it need saying?" The Time Lord's eyes were pained and Rose looked at him in disbelief before turning her attention to him.

"And you, Doctor, what was the end of that sentence?"

" _I love you_." He whispered in her ear, the words he had avoided saying for so long, not wanting to share them with anyone, not even his other self.

Rose kissed him. Her arms wrapped around his shoulders and his only coherent thought was that he was _finally_ kissing Rose Tyler.

At the sound of the TARDIS door squeaking open, Rose abruptly broke off the kiss, turning towards the sound, running after the disappearing ship. He followed her, taking her hand. He was still here. The Doctor and Rose Tyler. Soon to be in their own TARDIS, like they should be.


	38. Chapter 38

doctorroseprompts acts of nonsexual intimacy – taking a bath together. I totally pictured this as Twelve, but I've tried not to be too specific.

Rose released the Doctor's blackened hand, unknotting the laces of her trainers. Her hands shook and she gave up on the shoestrings, kicking them off. The Doctor was quick to seek her hand out again, gripping it tightly in his own. Gently, Rose stroked his hair down, pressing her forehead against his.

"Come on," she murmured, leading him to the loo. "Come on, sweetheart." The Doctor's silence scared her. He easily followed her to the bathtub, hands shaking, eyes nearly swollen shut.

Rose filled the tub with lukewarm water, then turned back to the Doctor. He was trying to undo the button of his coat, hands growing more frustrated as it stayed done up. Rose took his hands in hers again, cupping them against her cheeks. He didn't move his hands until Rose began pulling the coat off of him, automatically straightening his arms as Rose brought it over his arms. Slowly, she worked the jumper over his head as well. He looked at her with glassy eyes, and Rose reached for his hand once more. Standing before her in a vest top and pants, the Doctor looked far more vulnerable than she had seen him in a long time.

She entered the bath, holding the Doctor's hand as he followed. Her back against the wall, Rose lowered themselves to the floor of the tub. Slowly, nearly methodically, Rose ran a wet washcloth across the Doctor's shoulder and down his arm until the dust had been washed away. She repeated the process down his right arm, interspersed with reassuring touches and gentle kisses.

A quick plea to the TARDIS had the water crystal clear once more. The Doctor's body was more visible now, though still black and blue. Rose gently massaged the Doctor's scalp with shampoo, rinsed, and repeated. His hands were gripping the edge of the tub, his head resting against her chest, and Rose could feel his heartbeats slowing. She continued the routine, applying the conditioner, running her hands through his hair. Rinse.

Rose helped the Doctor out, draping his robe over him. Quickly, she rinsed her own hair clean and drained the tub.

"Thank you," the words finally emerging from the Doctor's mouth were hoarse as she stripped away their soaked undergarments.

"I love you," was all Rose could say in return, wrapping her arms around him as they made their way to their bed, the Doctor leaning on her. His hands, though no longer freezing, were still cooler than usual to her touch and Rose scooted over closer to him to rest her head against his chest.


	39. Valentine's Day? (One)

timepetalscollective Roses in Classic Who (technically _a_ Rose in Classic Who) + OnexRose Valentine

"And do you have a name, child?" The Doctor asked impatiently. Despite his insistence that he was no medical professional, Chatterton had insisted that he help the disoriented young girl.

"Rose…'m Rose," she began to sit up, resting against the TARDIS door. Curious, the Doctor tried to look in her timeline, shocked to see that her past intricately intertwined with his future. He was even more surprised when the TARDIS recognized her, his own mental link with the timeship strengthening when it connected with the girl.

Inside the ship, Susan was watching the viewer with great interest. "The girl, she knows Grandfather!" She exclaimed.

"Do you know her, Susan?" Ian asked.

"No, of course not, Ian. She's from Grandfather's future – he's never met her before," Susan explained patiently, though Ian detected that she was slightly disappointed that he had not been able to make that connection.

"The ship recognizes you," the Doctor mused aloud.

"S nice," the girl said faintly, clearly trying to catch her breath. "I've missed her."

"How does my ship know you, hmm?" The Doctor asked, piercing her with a curious look.

"What can I tell you? The Doctor – my Doctor, the future you I travelled with – said that I can't interact with my past self, but he never mentioned anything about _his_ past self."

"There are methods that allow me to block memories until I've passed a certain point in my lifetime, child," the Doctor brushed off her concern. "The ship, girl."

"Bad Wolf," the girl said quietly. "I am the Bad Wolf. The Doctor thought he'd wiped her from my mind, but it's still there. It's the TARDIS. We… connected, I suppose you could say. The Doctor saved me from…something, and then I could communicate with the TARDIS." The girl looked at him (dare he think it?) rather wistfully.

"Bad Wolf? What is Bad Wolf, child? Speaking in riddles, are we?" The Doctor harrumphed.

"M trying not to tell you your future, Doctor."

The TARDIS connected with the Doctor's mind, showing him exactly what had happened to the strange girl. "You should have died."

"The Doctor saved me," the girl – Rose, repeated.

This girl had looked into Time itself and survived. "Who are you, child?"

"Rose. My name is Rose."

Inside the TARDIS, the occupants were theorizing who the strange woman was.

"She's not a Time Lord," Susan said plaintively. "It's obvious."

"Time Lord?" Ian looked away from the viewer.

"That's who we are. Grandfather and I, we're Time Lords. Or, he is, anyway. I never went to the Academy," Susan replied absently, focusing on the stranger.

"I don't suppose that we've landed at home," Barbara folded her hands, sitting in the chair. "It's all very well to be meeting people who apparently know the Doctor already, but I'd like to know where we are."

"Earth. Paris, I think," Susan fiddled with a dial, bringing up the space-time coordinates.

"Oh, it's not your fault, Susan. Just wishing thinking, I suppose."

The girl looked around, before glancing back at the Doctor. "When are we?"

When are we. Not where, the Doctor noted. "Two thousand four," he answered her question, careful to watch her response.

"Looks like the middle of February," Rose commented. The air was cold, but there were a few street vendors milling about, selling their wares. There was a flower stall nearby, a single pink rose left for sale. She was too early. Not that the year mattered, but this was the Doctor, long before he'd met her. Long before he'd had the slightest inkling of the terrible war that was ahead of him. She felt the TARDIS key grow hot around her neck, smiling sadly.

"Is that key for the TARDIS?" The Doctor's curiosity got the better of him.

"Yeah. Been using it to…" She trailed off, unsure how to explain. "I travelled with you, in the future. But I got lost, hopelessly lost, and 'm trying to get back. 'M using the key as a homing device."

"Through space _and_ time?" The Doctor asked, peering at the key.

"I didn't think that I'd end up this far out. Where I'm getting back from, time runs ahead." Rose kept her explanation short.

"Most intriguing, my dear, most intriguing. And yet you still haven't said _why_ you're travelling across space-time, hmm?"

Rose stared at him. "Isn't it obvious?" The Doctor merely gave her a look. "I said 'm trying to get back. To you, the proper you, further down your timeline. I…" She closed her mouth. The last time she'd said those words, he'd faded from view right in front of her.

"Yes?" The Doctor prompted her.

"I love you," she whispered, looking away. She did, she loved him so much, but the man in front of her didn't know who she was. Oh, his face was just as unfamiliar to her as hers was to him, but there was a spark in his eye that yearned for adventure. The same man, always.

The Doctor was shocked. If Chesterton were out here, he'd more than likely make some offhanded quip about that coming from right field or some nonsense, he thought vaguely.

"Sorry," she hurriedly swiped at her eyes. "It's just that the last time I told you, you disappeared right in front of me." Something beeped and she looked down. "Two minute signal. If I don't find you, I get pulled back automatically after a certain period of time. It's ready to go back, now."

The Doctor pulled a necklace from his pocket. A locket. "I suspect, my dear, that you were meant to be here at this time." He pressed the chain into Rose's hand. "This is less conspicuous than carrying a key around one's neck." He popped it open, placing the key over the picture frame. He smiled at Rose's shocked expression as she watched her key shrink to fit inside. More hesitantly, he undid the clasp, holding the chain up by both ends; Rose bent her head forward and he clasped it around her neck.

"Rose," the Doctor finally used her name. "That's the name of my granddaughter, you know."

"No," Rose whispered. "I didn't know." She touched the necklace reverently.

"I hope you find me," he smiled.

Rose couldn't help but smile in return. "Doctor," she slowly faded from view.


End file.
